To No Regrets
by ladykaylee
Summary: He was such a f***ing idiot sometimes. He should have learned by now that denying who you are and what you want does nothing but push away the person you're trying so hard to convince yourself you don't need. Style, ft. Bunny & some Candy on the side
1. Cold

A pair of lips reached the edge of a bottle as they took a swig; a pair chapped slightly by the cold but quivering for reasons unrelated. They belonged to one Stan Marsh. The eighteen year old sat and swayed back and forth to the music on the steps of Bebe Stevens' house, the alcohol coursing through his veins making the crisp, cold Colorado air seem to him much less cold than it actually was. This probably was less a blessing than it was a curse; he'd been sitting there for at least half an hour, and he was wearing neither his coat nor his shoes. Both had gotten lost in the throes of the party raging behind the door he wasn't facing. He shivered, but his mind took no notice.

He took another long swig of the 16oz bottle of vodka, the burning sensation in his throat fending off the cold that kept trying to spread from his outside to his inside. So far, he was pretty successful. In fact, he was perfectly warm, perfectly content to sit there the whole night, perfectly in need of no one. The vodka, he was certain, would make the cold, heartbroken feeling in his chest go away eventually. He needed no one.

No one.

He stretched out his foot and absentmindedly drew a "K" in the snow, shaking the ice off languidly before putting his foot back down, looking at what he'd done, finishing off and throwing the now empty glass bottle at his sketch in the untouched white. He missed.

"Fuck you."

He crossed his arms into his chest and let out a long, heaving, intoxicated sigh, his breath forming a cloud of condensed, humid longing that disappeared as quickly as his ability to forget the letter he had just made in the powder... or the person it belonged to.

Most people have that memory of the moment they met the person they can't stop thinking about, but the truth was, he couldn't really remember when it was that they had met. They must have been too young, because there was no specific moment pointed out in his mind; no first hello, no anything. He made a mental note to ask his mom when that moment was, so he could at least pretend he had it in his memory banks, and then immediately decided he didn't want to know. He didn't need another reason to be dwelling on memory after memory of his once-upon-a-time Super Best Friend. He saw a shooting star streak across the sky, and snorted. He was in no mood for wish-making. It had gotten him absolutely nowhere in the past, so why should it work this time?

_Wishes don't exist._

And the minute that realization crossed his conscious, he put his head in his knees and cried.

* * *

"So that's it then?"

Kyle Broflovski stared intently into his eyes, searching the blue ones before him for any kind of confirmation; confirmation that what had just come out of the mouth that quivered some three and a half inches below them was indeed what he had really meant to say. Stan tried to open it, to say something else, to say anything that would allow him to keep his best friend. But there was nothing he could say to make it better. He started to look like a fish out of water before he managed to make sound.

"K-Kyle, I," he began.

"I want to hear you say that again," the red-haired boy demanded, his eyes painfully dark with an angry hurt that filled the room.

"Kyle, it was hard enough to—"

"Say. It. Again." Tears welled up in his eyes as he grabbed Stan by the scruff of his shirt, bringing their lips no more than one fourth of an inch apart. Stan felt Kyle's breath on his lips and closed his eyes tightly shut to stifle the impulse to throw them both down on the floor and repeat what had happened two weeks prior. "Say it, Stan. If you meant it—if that's the TRUTH, then SAY IT."

Stan opened his eyes to meet what he momentarily felt were two brilliant, sparkling emeralds, and, feeling his mental state being to flail around in confusion, stood his ground on the side of the denial that would keep him from acknowledging how those eyes made him feel. It was now or never.

"It was a drunken mistake. I want to forget it." He paused, praying he'd said enough and he wouldn't have to—

"Finish."

"Kyle..."

"Finish what you started, Stan," Kyle demanded, pushing the dark-haired coward in front of him against the wall and closing the gap between them so that no part of them wasn't touching. As he spoke, his lips moved against Stan's, his breath filling his mouth in such a way that Stan feared for both of them what would happen if they stayed in this position any longer. Kyle was bound to notice that his body and his words didn't seem to be in accord with each other. "Say what you said before. I dare you."

Stan's eyes fluttered shut in a rush of arousal, pain, hatred, love, and distress. He felt his hands reaching up to grip at Kyle's hips when the awareness of what that would lead to ripped him from his reverie. And yet, his instinct was to pull Kyle even closer. If this was the end, he'd at least let himself feel this much.

"It meant nothing to me."

As soon as those words brushed against Kyle's lips, the red-head devoured his best friend's mouth in the angriest, most passionate, whirlwind-of-emotion kiss either of them had ever experienced in either their eighteen years on the planet. He didn't know what to do. He had expected Kyle to slap him, punch him, storm out, something, but not this. So, for an inability to do anything else, he kissed him back.

Stan's hands gripped at Kyle's hips, grinding into him as his fingers wandered up and down to touch any part of the beautiful young man before him that he could. They kissed fiercely, dangerously for a whole of twenty seconds before Kyle pushed Stan back with all the strength he could, sending his friend flying back into the wall. Stan shook his head, trying to get his bearings, bewildered and panting. He looked up at Kyle, who was now crying freely, liquid beads of dismay falling off the edge of his face in droves. Stan pleaded silently with him to not do what he was about to, but he did. He took a few steps backwards, shaking his head in disbelief, and then walked briskly out the door and slammed it behind him.

* * *

Stan hugged his legs closely to his chest. His gay little crying spell had been short, which meant he hadn't had nearly enough to drink, in his opinion. He stared out onto the road for a moment before getting up, the street lamps reflecting dully on the fresh snow below them. It finally became clear how cold his feet really were when he put his weight on them, their condition causing him to buckle slightly. He cringed. He lived in the cold long enough to know that he was fine, but it still hurt enough to be annoying. He grabbed onto the rail next to the steps, the feat of steadying himself proving harder than he thought, both because of his feet and the alcohol. Once he'd gotten his footing, he went back inside.

12:40 in the morning and the party was raging, the mess of people in the living room dancing around to a combination of Lady GaGa, Beyonce, and Chris Brown. The girls danced together in a circle, leaving the guys to try their luck at grabbing one of them to grind up against. He spotted the queen Bebe herself, her arms around Token's neck as she drunkenly seduced him with her silly little hip swivels and hair tosses. Clyde and Annie really needed to go get a room. Off in a corner he saw _her_, passionately pushed against a wall, being kissed tenderly by her new sadistic asshole of a boyfriend. He wanted to throw up at how happy she looked.

He weaved his way through the crowd, getting bumped into from time to time on his way to the not-so-virgin punch bowl. Rebecca, who demanded to be called Red the same way Madonna refused to have a last name, was having herself a time serving drinks for everyone as Craig unsubtly fondled her thighs and hips behind her. He seemed to be trying to get her to go home.

"STAN!" she squealed, taking a big gulp of whatever was in her cup and coming out from behind the table to force-feed him the rest. He coughed, sputtering, but managed to swallow most of the whatever-alcohol-that-was. He couldn't taste the difference anymore. She laughed, putting her arm around his shoulders and pressing against him. "How are you? We haven't hung out in soooo long," she frowned.

"Yeah, well," he mumbled, unsure what to say to one of his ex's best friends, who, incidentally, he had fucked during one of their break-up's, and feeling like Craig was going to leap over and kill him if she kept up her touchy-feeliness any longer. "It's been kinda crazy lately."

"TELL me about it. _This_ one's," she nodded to Craig, "all pissed cause he thinks I flirt with everything that moves." She handed Stan a beer cup full of punch and he immediately raised it to his lips, trying to avoid having to comment.

"You _do_ flirt with everything that moves," Craig chimed in. Stan knew he shouldn't have laughed, but something about the way Craig said that made him choke into his drink. He sputtered, his laugher getting more out of control the more he tried to stop. Red smacked him on the arm in protest and walked back to her man. Craig grinned at him, somewhat competitively, as though he were daring him to deny it. Feeling put on the spot, he took another sip.

"Anyway, Stan," she continued, clearing the table of empty cups and sharing between them the ones that had a little left over. "You okay?"

Stan blinked, confounded and surprised she was asking. He must have looked like a deer in the headlights for the half-second it took him to respond.

"Uh, yeah," he lied. "You know, break-ups are tough." He was always good at giving the most vague answers to questions about his personal life. He had become a very, very private person as of late. Losing the one person he told everything to had taken away his ability to open up to anyone over just about anything. When Kyle "left," he took with him a lot of his ability to function.

_Stop. Thinking. About Kyle._

"Well, I gotta go to the bathroom," he blurted out awkwardly, turning around and walking away.

"Hey, wait!" Red called out, making him look back at her. She looked like she was about to cry, and she threw her arms around him in a hug, spilling her drink into the crowd, which caused the people who got spilled on to cry out in protest and those they were with to laugh very loudly. She unsteadily pulled away and said: "what ever is meant to be, will be, okay?"

He stood there, speechless and uncomfortable, but somewhat grateful that someone cared how he was doing. Too bad it wasn't the person whose comfort he wanted. He managed a weak smile before tipping his cup up to her in a toast and walking towards the stairs to the bathroom. On his way, he saw a half-full cup of something he assumed wasn't water and grabbed it shortly before colliding with whoever was making their way down from where he was headed.

"Watch it, dammit!"

The blurry sight of his ex-girlfriend's pink beret was almost enough to make Stan Marsh reach for another drink. And he would have, had he not already been double fisting. He was pretty sure he'd had enough, anyway. Bebe did always throw the best parties.

He stepped back a little bit and looked Wendy up and down. Even though the room was spinning, he could see that she was still hot, still very smart, and still kind of a bitch. The way she was staring daggers at him told him she was still quite sore about the way things had ended, and he was in no mood to be guilt-tripped about his mistakes. He couldn't really blame her for being mad, however; he was the one who fucked things up, mostly. Not that he cared much. She wasn't the one who had taken over his mind. But, the way he saw it, she should take her victory and walk, cause he, Stan Marsh, had suffered the majority of the damage. And he already knew she had someone to fall back on, anyways.

"Sorry," he mumbled, somewhat defiantly, looking off to the side to avoid eye contact. She had an uncanny tendency of reading him like a book when she made him look at her directly. He almost smiled at the memory of how close they had once been; that is, until he caught her smiling at her knight in fascist armor, who was waving her over from across the living room. He snorted. "Yeah, mustn't be late for your fuck buddy, huh."

He had no idea why he said that. He found it hard not to cringe in regret at himself in front of her after that stupidity came stumbling out of his intoxicated self. Why the hell was keeping her there any longer than she had to be? He looked off into the crowd like a very grown-up-looking petulant child, and she rolled her eyes and made for the other side of the room, only to find his arm blocking her way.

She stared up at him, questioning him with a steady gaze as to why he was doing what he was doing. Unfortunately, he would have come up answer-less had she asked, because he had no fucking idea why he suddenly felt the urge to fuck with her. And he couldn't very well tell her 'my arm is stopping you cause I need a punching bag, so hold still please.' He just needed to annoy someone. He needed someone else in this room to be as frustrated, aggravated, pissed off, or whatever else he was feeling as he was. Someone other than him; and Wendy, he knew, was easily annoyed. At least, he seemed to have a knack for it.

"You heard me," he spat.

Still, this wasn't like him. Even with alcohol, he was never a spiteful guy. He was a slightly angry kid, but he was much more level-headed than Kenny and Craig, and most of his comments were more sarcastic than they were anything else. He wasn't a mean kid by any terms. But tonight, he wanted to be mean. He wanted to try it out. And Wendy was the first person in the room he'd run into that he had a beef with. She _had_been sleeping with Cartman for at least two years before they broke up, after all. But he hadn't been a saint to her either, so he had no right to be harassing her, nor was he really enjoying it. So why was he?

"Move out of the way, Stan," she said calmly, a veiled warning tone in the back of her voice as she spoke, refusing to look away from him. He, on the other hand, only looked at her for a whole of one or two seconds at a time before scoffingly looking off somewhere else.

"Why, so you can go running to your backup?" he snapped, knowing instantly that he'd gone too far. Wendy's eyes instantly went dark. She stepped up on the stairs so that she was at his eye level, her hands resting on her hips as she leaned over slightly, dominating. When he tried to avoid her gaze, she felt her hand sternly turn his head towards her. Once he was in, she let him go.

"Let me make something clear to you, Stan," she growled. "_He_ was never a 'backup.' The only person who was a '_backup_' in any of this was _me_, and you know it."

She waited for him to react in some way, holding her ground. He wanted to look down at the floor, to curl up into a ball and disappear, but letting that show was out of the question right now. He had to save whatever pathetic scraps of his dignity he had left. He was still angry, but he knew he wasn't going to win this one. He didn't want to win this one. He didn't want to win anything. He just wanted to lock himself in the bathroom and never come out.

"I didn't know it," he said finally. "If I'd known it, I wouldn't have put you through that."

Wendy sighed, sensing anguish through his honesty. "Well, you know it now." She made to leave, and Stan almost felt the urge to reach out and stop her. Not because he wanted her around... He just wanted _someone _around. She hesitated in her movements long enough to say to him: "I really cared about you, Stan, but _he_ puts me first."

The comment would have hurt him more if it hadn't been so true, or if he was still in love with her. Wendy noticed the look on her former boyfriend's face and put her hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "I hope things work out for you and—"

Before she could finish, and because he knew the end of that sentence would kill him, he shoved her hand off forcefully.

"Fuck off, Wendy." And with that, he stumbled off.


	2. Comfort

**Friday, April 2nd.**

**Four weeks ago.**

**

* * *

**

"So, what do you think?"

Stan really wished he had been listening. She was going to get so mad at him for not listening. To be fair, he was never listening to what she was saying, lately. He tried, he just... Well, his senses were focused on driving and his mind was... somewhere else. Besides, his trust in her had taken a sharp downturn over the past couple of months.

"Stan," she called, somewhat sternly, crossing her arms in front of her seatbelt guarded chest.

"Hm?"

"What do you think? Can we go to my house and talk, please?"

_Oh, right. That's what she was talking about._

"Oh, um," he stalled, breaking at the red light before turning the corner to her house. "Yeah, no, not tonight, Wends... Gotta go to Kyle's house. His mom's still not speaking to him and he's pretty upset."

She stared at him blankly, as though she couldn't believe what he'd said, and yet expected nothing else. "Kyle's house."

"Yeah, I promised him I'd—"

"God, fuck you, Stan!"

"What?"

"I said: fuck. YOU."

"What the fuck, Wendy, what did I do?" Both of them were raising their voices as Stan raised the speed of the car, turning the corner toward her house with screeching tires. He saw Eric Cartman and his swastika-adorned backpack walking down the sidewalk on his way home from school and grunted, looking at Wendy long enough to catch her attempt at a subtle glance at the former fatass fascist of South Park High. It would have been subtle to anyone else, but Stan had known her intimately for a decade. They could read each other like open books. He swerved the car and mounted the sidewalk in front of her house, coming close to taking down the Testaburger mailbox.

"Jesus Christ, Stan! What the fuck!?

"You should go," he told her.

"I just want to talk to you about some stuff!" she protested.

"I'll talk to you later," he said curtly, glancing at Cartman's reflection in the rearview mirror. He'd stopped walking. Stan tutted the extra air out of his nose sarcastically. _Some 'stuff.' Gee, I wonder what. _

"I have to go to Kyle's tonight. We can hang out tomor—"

He heard her let out an exasperated puff of frustration and looked over to see her undoing her seatbelt. She opened the car door, and started to get out in quite a huff.

"Jesus Christ, you spend all your fucking TIME with Kyle and you can't even set aside one night so we can talk!?" she screamed, grabbing her backpack and purse in a fit of anger. Cartman was still standing some twenty feet behind them, watching. He furrowed his brow, ready to say something insulting about the obvious, but suddenly felt like he was being too mean and changed his tactics. After all, he wasn't sure of anything, right? He could trust her...

_Right?_

"Look, I'm sorry, Wends, I just... Kyle really needs me right now—"

"Kyle really needs you, _Kyle_ really _needs _you, oh, go _fuck_ him already, Stan!"

And with that, she slammed the door. He blinked at her last words, half-confused, half-horrified that she would ever think something like that was actually going on, and just the tiniest bit scared shitless at her uncanny ability to read even his most secret, fleeting thoughts. He saw her look to her left and looked back at the rear-view mirror, watching Cartman watch her walk into her house. No, he couldn't trust her. He wasn't stupid enough to not see what was right in front of him. As soon as he saw she had opened her front door, he pounded his foot down on the accelerator and headed straight for Kyle's house.

Who the fuck did she think she was, chastising him for not spending more time with her, when she was clearly spending enough time with someone else? Did she think he was that stupid? That he wouldn't have been able to figure it out? Sure, he wasn't as book smart as she or Kyle or Butters were, but he wasn't a fucking moron. He slowed down, not wanting to get killed before getting to Kyle's house. That would do him no good. He had to see him. Kyle always made everything better.

He turned another corner and slowly came to a stop in front of the greenish-gray home that was the Broflovski residence. Just the sight of that house made him smile. He rummaged in the backseat and stuffed the bottle of Absolut in his backpack, covering it in his gym clothes just in case. Mrs. Broflovski would kill them if she knew that they drank. She was so frickin' conservative.

Even as she answered the door, he worried that she could smell the alcohol through the glass of the closed bottle and the backpack's confines. It didn't help that he knew she wasn't too happy with him either. According to her, Kyle's choice to pass up Stanford University so he could go to Berkeley with Stan was mostly _his_ fault, anyway.

"H-Hey, Mrs. Broflovski, is Kyle home?"

She glared at him before breathing audibly through her nostrils and stepping aside to let him in. Had he had a taste for LSD, he might have seen smoke and fire come out of them. Or he might have seen her turn into a full-out dragon and swallow him whole right then and there. Thankfully, hallucinogens weren't his thing. He shook himself mentally and nodded politely, thanking her before scampering upstairs to Kyle's room. He knocked.

"It's me," he said simply, opening the door to the sight of Kyle asleep on top of his sheets in nothing but his boxers. He gulped unconsciously, and made a point of closing the door ever so slightly loudly to wake him up.

"Nhwhat!?"

"It's me," he repeated, putting his backpack down next to Kyle's nightstand. He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Kyle rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and stretched before sitting up next to him.

"You okay, dude? You look a little flushed," he asked, noticing the blush that had crept up Stan's cheeks. Stan, however, had taken no notice of either that nor of his elevated heart-rate. There was a logical explanation for that, and he had it ready.

"Yeah, I just had a fight with Wendy... And your mom freaked me out at the door, man. The way she was looking at me, I was sure she would whip out a pick-axe and do me in, Trotsky-style."

Kyle laughed, patting his friend on the back and getting up to put on some sweatpants. "I'm sure she wanted to. And then she'd pull it out of your head and crack my skull open, too."

"She'll get over it."

"No, she won't," he said, pausing to look out the window, an indiscernible look on his face. Indiscernible to anyone but Stan, that is.

"Well, then, I guess that's her problem," he stated simply, leaning over to grab his backpack before unzipping it and pulling out the brand new bottle of vodka, a few pre-rolled splifs, a slingshot, and a roll of toilet paper. He smiled. "Wanna go smoke and get drunk on the rock and fling spitballs at passing cars?"

Kyle grinned widely and jumped on his friend in a big 'thank you' hug, making Stan drop all of the illicit presents on the floor and hug him back. He had no idea that breathing in the scent of his Super Best Friend was the thing that was making his heart race again. Soft, red curls brushed against his cheek, but he paid no attention to how comfortable and right it felt. He just didn't have to think about that. It was implicit. The blissful comfort he felt around Kyle was just how he always felt around Kyle. He heard Kyle whisper a 'thanks, dude,' before breaking the embrace.

"We should probably do some homework first, though."

"Aww!" Stan whined, pouting and looking at the clock. "Alright, fine, but we better be out of here by nine!"

"That all depends on how quickly you finish," Kyle stated simply, prompting Stan to stifle a loud 'HA!' and blurt out—

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"


	3. Drunk

**Back at the party.**

**Present day.**

* * *

Up the stairs and down the hallway, Stan opened the door to the guest bathroom, blundering in and making the doorknob on the other side hit the wall. He steadied himself at the sink and kicked the door shut with his still-barefoot foot, looking at himself as intently as he could in the mirror. His fucking face kept moving around in front of him. He was starting to get the spins.

Correction, he was starting to _notice_ the spins. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew his head had been spinning for a while... but he had no idea how _drunk_ he was until he got to the bathroom. Something about the linoleum tiles and the unfamiliar smell of someone else's lavatory was making him want to lie down on the cold floor and just pass out. Then again, he didn't want to wake up in Bebe's bathroom tomorrow afternoon and have to try and sneak out to avoid the awkward 'how drunk were _you_ last night?' conversation. He held on to the sink and closed his eyes.

_'I hope things work out for you and—'_

Stan groaned, whacking his fist on the wall next to him and taking a sizable gulp of the cup of what he thought might be gin... but his taste buds were shot, so what did he know? He had been trying to get the end of that unfinished sentence out of his head for the past four weeks; four weeks which he had spent forcing himself not to allow that name to cross his mind, which, of course, only meant he was thinking about it constantly. He took a gulp of the punch, which he only discerned was so because of color, and slid down to sit on the floor.

_'I hope things work out for you and—'_

_FUCK._

This wasn't at all how the end of their senior year was supposed to be going. In less than a month, they would all be graduating. They were all going to different places soon, and this was _not_ the way he'd imagined spending his last months in the fucked-up little town he called home. Wendy was off to Columbia, so Cartman had somehow manipulated his way into NYU to be with her. Bebe, Annie, Clyde, Token, Craig, all headed somewhere in the west coast he didn't remember. Everyone else, he hadn't even bothered to ask.

Kenny had spent the past few months convincing Butters to go to Princeton, something his sweet-tempered 'Buttercup' was still struggling with. Kenny had actually taken a shot and auditioned for the music program at Juilliard, and, even though he got in, couldn't afford to go. Instead of being able to put his gifted signing voice to the test, he'd be stuck working as a mechanic in South Park. Butters had gotten into Princeton with a full scholarship, but ever since what happened to Kenny, he was refusing to abandon him. The impending rift was putting a lot on their plate, and Butters seemed to get more and more depressed as the day grew nearer, spending every second with Kenny that he could and insisting that he had a plan to get him to New York. Stan was sure he'd find it all quite heartbreaking if he had pieces of his heart big enough to break again.

As for him and Kyle... They were both supposed to go to Berkeley together. Even filled out the form to be roommates, but after what happened... well.

* * *

Stan walked through the hallway on his way from lunch to Principal Victoria's office. He needed to fill out some financial aid stuff for Berkeley, and was hoping to run into Kyle to talk to him about a couple of things... Mostly just the whole 'one-night-stand-and-them-not-speaking-because-of-Stan's-stupid-inability-to-admit-how-he-felt' fiasco.

"Hello, Stanley, you here to fill out your paperwork?" Principal Victoria had always been a pretty good person to have around. At least she wasn't as downright retarded as most of the people in town. Or in the state, come to think of it. She did come down on him and his friends a little hard from time to time, but more often than not, they deserved it. Especially Cartman.

"Yeah, I just have to sign, right?"

"Yes, that's all that's left to do. I have them all right there, do you need a pen?"

"No, I've got one," he said, rummaging through his backpack and pulling out the pen he'd taken from the Hilton when he, Kyle, Kenny and Butters had all gone to Disneyland. He smiled, and started signing. He had been working up the nerve to find some casual way to catch up on how Kyle's paper work was coming without letting on to the fact that he was obsessing day and night over the thought of... everything. Nervously, he cleared his throat and tried to sound as non-chalant as possible. "Do you know if Kyle got all his financial aid stuff in on time? I know the deadline was—"

"Kyle? Broflovski?"

"Yeah, I know he's going to Berkeley too, so—"

"Oh, no, no. Kyle came in here on Monday. He decided to go to Stanford after all," she explained, emailing someone on the computer and completely oblivious to the fact that Stan had completely lost his ability to breathe.

His heart, he was sure, was going to fall through his feet and down into nowhere. The inside of his chest felt like it was harboring a black-hole. All he could hear was his heartbeat, so loud he was surprised the principal didn't look up at his panic-stricken face and call the hospital. He tried to swallow, his mouth dry enough to make speaking difficult as a concept alone.

"Wh-what... did he. I mean, he—uh—he's going to Stanford," he stumbled. "He's, um, well—good. That's good. Good school. That's... good school."

He continued what he was doing, his signatures turning into amorphous blobs of shock that barely resembled what it was supposed to look like.

"Yes, I'm glad he decided to go for it. He's a smart kid," she chit-chatted trivially, not actually paying much attention to him. Not that he noticed. When your walls are coming crashing down on you, you don't tend to notice much else.

"Yeah, yeah, he's—he's a smart kid. Smart kid... Stanford," he mumbled, drawing a shaky squiggle on the last form and putting them all back in the folder. "Alldonethanks."

"Okay, bye bye, Stanley."

He walked briskly out of the office, blinking furiously to avoid fucking crying in public before he could lock himself in a bathroom stall.

* * *

And here he was again, locked in a bathroom, crying silently as he stared at the wall. He had never cried so much and so often in his life as he did over the past month. When did he become such a goddamn pussy? The very thought made him grab for the towel to wipe those stupid fucking tears away and down the rest of the still-unsure-if-it's-gin-or-what in one, monstrous, neutralizing gulp. He was getting close to the end of his limit for alcohol. Good. That's just what he was aiming for tonight.

_Fucking Kyle._

Mother fucker hadn't even bothered to tell him that he had changed his mind about Berkeley. Although, come to think of it, he couldn't really expect him to. He should have seen it coming. They were supposed to go to together. Kyle had turned down Stanford, which had caused Sheila Broflovski to come cantering over to their house, livid, to yell at Stan for 'ruining her bubby's chances at being the lawyer he was meant to become.' For 'ruining his life,' apparently. He had turned down an almost full-ride at a school like Stanford so that they could go to college together, because neither of them seemed to be able to stomach the idea of being even just an hour away from each other. Because, even back then, even though he didn't know what it meant, Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski couldn't live without each other.

He took another sip of the punch.

Kyle should have been there with him, drunk as a skunk, setting things on fire in the backyard, celebrating the end of their South Park days, spending all the time they could with Kenny and Butters before they all went their separate ways. If he recalled correctly, they were all going to go down to Mexico together after graduation—it was sunny enough to be worthwhile and cheap enough for Kenny to afford, unlike their last trip. But no, his Super Best Friend was nowhere to be found, and he, Stan Marsh, was to blame for that. He was to blame for all of this. Sheila Broflovski was right: he'd ruined their lives. She was only wrong about what he did to ruin them.

The remorse over it all made him feel like throwing up, and he put the half-empty cup of death-punch aside to hug himself around the toilet. He waited, wanting to just stick his head in and drown, but after that phase Kenny went through when he was killing himself for kicks, he no longer found suicide appealing. He'd already been too much of a coward to go out like one in flaming, cowardly colors. He pulled away from the toilet and was getting up to leave, when the door opened and hit him square on the forehead.

"What the FUCK!"

"Oh, shit, dude! Sorry!" Kenny McCormick doddered in, grabbing on to the towel bar for balance. He put his drink on the sink and helped his friend up. "Oooh, fuck," he laughed, moving away to grab some toilet paper. "I think I cracked your head open. Crack! Like an egg."

"Ugh."

"Not that there's much in there! Eh-oh!" he quipped, eliciting a punch to shoulder from Stan that unbalanced them again. "Uncool, yo! I'm drunk, drunk, _drunk_ as fuck! And, hey! So are you!" He brought the clump of toilet paper to the sink to dampen it with water. "Oh man, dude, I just saw Clyde and... what's her name—"

"Annie," Stan mumbled, indifferent, touching his head to see that he was bleeding. He flashed a cynical smile to his finger, which Kenny missed.

"Yeah, Annie... Goddamn, ten years in the same school and I still can't, can't remember her friggin' name. Hah. Anyway, they fell down to the floor when she started doing this weird slutty dancy-thing—shaking her ass too fast so some song by that Latin chick, what'shername—"

"Shakira?"

"Right! Shakira. Some Shakira song. Anyway, Annie starts shakin' and Clyde looks like, scared shitless, like, he has no idea what's going on, and he's drunk, so, he can't hold on to her very well, so they both fell, and then just started grind-fucking! Right there, right in front of everyone! You missed some show, man." He was laughing pretty hard until he looked down at the shredded clump of toilet paper he had over-saturated and cursed himself under his breath before grappling for another giant clump and bringing it to the sink. "Even Butters couldn't look away—"

"Get me out of here."

Kenny stopped moving, looking at his friend. The tone of Stan's voice was just painful. He clumsily squeezed the excess water out through his hands and applied the soggy mess to his friend's forehead, wiping the trickle of blood away. Kenny, of course, was well aware of why Stan was so upset. Next to Kyle, Kenny was Stan's closest friend.

"Yeah, ok, come on," he said, grabbing Stan's arm and putting it around his shoulders. It took him a while to find his footing before Stan pointed out a problem in this plan.

"How're we're gonna get home? We can't operate heavy machinery right now, remember? Ha, remember that video? That stupid.. the lame-ass drink-driving, I mean, drunk driving, drunk video... It was so lame."

"SO lame," Kenny said, laughing as he remembered it. "That part with the.. that slutty chick, you know? The bitty with too much make up, when she crashed and was all dead—"

"She was—"

"SUCH a bad actress!" they finished together, laughing as they started to make their way down the hallway, back to the party. Stan groaned.

"I mean drive, Ken. Whatever. We shouldn't drive. I don't wanna die tonight," he said, tripping slightly on the first step and holding on to Kenny for balance.

"Well, that's the spirit!"

They had made it to the bottom, the clock in the living room reading 1:25 in the morming. He hoped to god that Kenny's better half could get them all home safe. Not that he would mind totaling the car. Maybe if he almost died, Kyle would come back to him. The thought was intriguing. He always saw it in movies: the couple would have a huge fight because one of them made a big fucking mess of a mistake, and then the mistake-maker gets hit by a car or something and almost dies, and the person they fucked over realizes they can't live without them, and, ta-da. Happily Ever After. It could work. And if he got killed, then he got killed. It was better than living in a world without Kyle anyway...

But he wasn't going to put Kenny and Butters in danger just to try and get almost annihilated and make his best friend forgive him. What a stupid, selfish plan.

_What other option do you have?_

"KENNY!"

The second he heard Butters' voice, a wave of dread washed over him. He had clearly been drinking just as much as everyone else had. He turned around in time to see a little blond in a turquoise jacket bouncing towards them wildly to the Lady GaGa song playing in the background. He felt Kenny break away, leaving Stan to lean cooly-ish against the wall for balance.

"Fuck, Butters, you're faced too? How the fuck are we going to get home, goddammit?" Stan yelled, a little more angry at his little friend than he'd intended. Misdirected anger seemed to be his thing these days.

"Don't fucking talk to him like that," Kenny growled. He had a zero-tolerance policy when it came to people acting negatively towards his other half in any way, shape, or form. All the emotional and physical abuse Butters had suffered since his toddler years, both from his parents and his peers, had put Kenny on the protective.

"Right, you're right..." Stan said sheepishly, embarrassed to be taking out his frustration on one of the only people who was on his side. "Sorry, Butters."

"Aww, that'skay, Stan-Stan!" he chirped, swatting the air with his hand in a 'forget about it' gesture before holding on to the back of his boyfriend's neck, swinging from side to side as the taller, more muscular of the two held him steady as best he could. Kenny pulled Butters close and nuzzled into his neck, making fragile little him sigh and giggle. "Ah! No biting, you bad! Bad, Kenny! Bite!"

"Wait, you _want_ me to bite?" Kenny teased, raising an eyebrow and smirking before going back in to playfully nip at Butters' neck again. "If you say so!"

"No! Ha, oh, wait! Kenny, no—I, oooh," he sputtered, laughing, sighing, protesting and urging him on all at the same time. "K-Kenny.."

"Aw, dude. Not now," Stan snapped, crossing his arms. Kenny stopped his playful assault and glared slightly at his friend before Butters' sensed the tension and put a stop to it.

"Ken, come on, he's hurting," he reasoned, giving Stan a sympathetic look. "It's only fair." Only Butters could control Kenny and his temper. He turned the darker blonde's head towards him and flicked him on the nose before placing a chaste kiss on his lips. "Now turn that frown up! Side! Down!"

"You're such a dork," Kenny smiled.

"Yeah, yeah, you guys are in love, I get it," Stan remarked, looking around the room for any Melvins who were sober enough to take them to their respective houses. No such luck. Everyone was sauced. "So, how the hell are we gonna get home?"

"Walking—wait! Where are your shoes, Stan!" Butters eyes were wide as flying saucers. Apparently the fact that Stan was missing his shoes was boundlessly shocking to him.

"I—um," Stan scratched his head, trying to remember. "Where... w-wait..." He took a long pause. "When did I take off my shoes? And what happened to my gin? Or was it vodka? I think it was gin. Where's my coat? I want more coat. Um, no, vodka. I want more vodka... where's my coat?"

"You've had enough, dude," Kenny chuckled, looking around the room and pointing at Annie and Clyde, passed out on the couch together, both too wasted to continue their public groping session. "We all have. I'm cutting you off. No more alkies for you tonight, Marsh."

"Ra-ra-ra-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mah, GaGa, ooh la la, we can all walk home!" Butters chimed in, offering his solution to the tune of the music. "We're, in, a-small-town! Won't, be, hard-to-walk! Ken, Ken, I-love-you! WANT YOUR BAD ROMANCE!"

Kenny burst out laughing as he caught Butters, who flailed a little wildly and would have fallen straight to the floor if it hadn't been for the other's killer reflexes. Stan whistled, impressed.

"How do you do that? You're like fucking Spider Man, dude, even when drunk," Stan slurred, helping them both to their feet in a hypocritcally drunken manner. Kenny snorted.

"Yeah, well, getting killed over and over again tends to sharpen your instincts—"

"NO!" Butters screamed, grabbing onto Kenny's shoulders. "Not again! Don't get killed again, Kenny!" The look on his face was one of deep, deep fear and distress. Tears started welling up in his eyes at an alarming rate as he clumsily searched Kenny for any visible fatal wounds, checking where all the important vital organs and such were. "No, no... no, not—not again, please,—no! not again..."

_Jesus Christ, he really loves him._

"Hey, hey, Buttercup," Kenny cooed, trying to get Butters to calm down, who was still searching him for open wounds and mumbling something about 'not again,' 'dying,' and 'no, Kenny, no' under his panic. "I'm fine, I'm not hurt. I'm not going to die."

"I HATE it when you die!" he cried out, making a few people turn around and look at them funny.

"I know," Kenny said, pressing a kiss on Butters' forehead. "I know, it's okay... I'm okay." Butters sniffled, pressing himself into Kenny and making them both stumble again a little. Kenny wrapped his arms around him, continuing to place light little kisses on Butters' head. "Time to go home."

The smaller blonde nodded, wiping away tears. That was, of course, until he heard the next GaGa hit come through the speakers. Stan had never seen such a rapid mood-switch in his life.

"Oh, oh! I love this song!" Butters squealed, smiling broadly. Kenny laughed at his everything's drunken mood-swing, mumbled an amused 'nevermind' and pulled him close as Butters started to dance and sing as loudly as he could. "HELLO, HELLO, BABY! YOU CALLED, I CAN'T HEAR A THING!"

Stan, on the other hand, had had enough of Lady GaGa, enough of the happy couple before him, enough of this bullshit. It was time to go home and pass out. Either that, or he was going to drink himself to death. The latter seemed to him far more reasonable, so he stumbled off through the kitchen, grabbing a quarter-full bottle of something gold and out to the back porch. Only in such shape could he be stupid enough to do what he was going to do next. He pulled out his phone and walked out to sit on the steps leading to the backyard, pressing number 2 on his speed-dial. Kyle Broflovski.

_Call_.


	4. Merry

**Friday, April 2nd.**

**Four weeks ago.**

* * *

"Kyle..." he groaned, staring at the moving seconds hand of the clock. He looked back at his notebook and textbook—Calculus. What the hell had he been thinking, taking Calculus? He didn't like math enough to actually grapple with Calculus. And that was just the regular class; freaking Kyle was in freaking AP and didn't seem to be freaking struggling at all. He looked at the long list of problems he'd done and the even longer list of ones he hadn't. His head was starting to hurt. "Kyle..."

"What?" Kyle answered offhandedly, focused deeply on his work.

"Kyle, it's nine thirty," Stan whined. "Can we go now?"

"Well, did you finish?" he asked simply, not looking at him as he sat at his desk, typing away the paper they had due for AP English next week. Stan always found himself amazed at Kyle's sense of academic responsibility. He wasn't even going to think about Wide Sargasso Sea until the night before that assignment was due, procrastinator extraordinaire that he was. He always turned everything in on time, and always did a good enough job and got a good enough grade on whatever it was to not have to change this habit. And yet, here was Kyle, diligently working on their paper due next week, mumbling to himself about how he should have started earlier when Mr. Mackey had assigned it. That was just Kyle. The thought of it all made Stan smile a smile he didn't know was loving, though lovingly he certainly did smile. So lost in that thought he was that he didn't even realize one, that he was staring; two, that he hadn't answered Kyle's question; three, Kyle was looking at him, brow furrowed, leaving Stan to figure out that he was calling his name only by the movement of his perfect, thin-yet-full lips.

"STAN!"

"What?!" he jumped, startled as though the other had yelled his name behind him when he wasn't looking. Kyle blinked at him, confused, and they held each other's gaze for a few seconds before Kyle found his voice again.

"Did... did you finish your, um, your homework?"

"Oh, um, no," he confessed, blushing at his lack of academic dexterity. "Almost, I swear, but... I mean, it's not due till Monday, right?"

Kyle chuckled, looking down at the floor and then back at Stan.

"Come on, dude, it's a Friday night," Stan coaxed, trying to reason for the sake of getting his friend to loosen up a little bit. "You can finish tomorrow, and you'll still be six days early. And I can finish on Sunday and I'll still be fine, right?"

Kyle's eyes went wide at the thought of putting something off 'till the last minute, even though he wasn't the one doing so.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, you prude," Stan joked, walking over to Kyle to give him a playful shove on the arm. "You know I'll get it done. Don't worry."

"Yeah, I know," he sighed, looking back at the unfinished essay on the computer. Stan leaned against the desk.

"So... can we go?"

Twenty seconds of pensively staring at the screen passed before Kyle resigned himself happily to stand up from his chair, grabbed for his coat and shoes and tossed Stan's over to him.

"Where are my keys?"

Barbie's smile had nothing on Stan's in that moment.

———

Two hours later, Stanley Marsh and Kyle Broflovski were spinning very, very quickly in circles on the massive rock atop which they once taught Bebe how to throw rocks at cars, hands held on to hands in homage to Jack and Rose in the movie Titanic, their laughter filling the cold, Colorado air. This was probably quite a bit more dangerous than they had ever considered, considering the amount of shots they'd each already done, and the fact that they were some thirty feet above the road below. But the rock was large and wide, and gave them ample space to fall over on without killing themselves once they let go. They landed in hysterics some five or six feet away from each other before Stan got up, grabbing the bottle of quarter-drunk Absolut and walking slightly zig-zaggy to where Kyle was still laying down, still laughing with his hands next to his flushed, out-of-breath cheeks.

"One more, and then we smoke—oh, SHIT! CAR!"

Kyle scrambled to his feet, wetting down a big clump of toilet paper as fast as he could before bringing it over to Stan and his slingshot. "Wait, no, here! Take it, get it in the—get it in there!"

"That's what she said!"

"SHOOT!"

"THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"

Stan hit the passing car right on the back window, both of them ducking down out of view but making no effort to lower their cheers and chortles. They could barely breathe from laughing so hard, smiling smiles as broad as their faces could physically break into. Kyle crawled over to Stan, grabbing the discarded bottle next to him and unscrewing it before taking a swig and handing it over, coughing and cringing but loving every second of what they were doing. Stan followed suit, re-capping the bottle before switching it out in his back pack for one of their splifs and the lighter.

"HELL yes!" Kyle called out, watching every single one of Stan's movements. They moved to sit somewhat near the edge, but not near enough to put themselves in trouble—just near enough to be ready to bombard more cars without having to get up. He watched Stan bring the skillfully rolled half-weed, half-tobacco contraption to his lips and thanked Jehova he didn't catch him slightly lick his own.

"Lighter."

Kyle reached into the depths of the backpack and produced Stan's zippo that he'd gotten him for his birthday last year, flicking open the flame and bringing it close before Stan shook his head.

"Wait, what the fuck, this is your night, dude, you take first hit," he said, taking the joint out of his mouth with one hand and the lighter out of Kyle's with the other before reaching over and putting it in front of him. The red-haired boy smirked, taking both it and the zippo from his friend's hands and flaring up their second inhibition detaining substance of the night. He took a long drag, closing his eyes and reveling in the loss of the worry and tension he'd been feeling for the past month and two. He breathed out a rolling cloud of smoke with a happy sigh and passed the 'cigarette' over to Stan.

"Car!" Kyle exclaimed, reaching for the toilet paper as Stan grabbed for the water, joint still in his mouth. They prepared another wet-bomb for Stan to skillfully disengage from his slingshot, hitting the car on the passengers window. "FUCK YEAH!"

Off in the distance, they heard the driver yell something about 'you stupid little assholes!' before the lights disappeared into the horizon.

"How do you have such good aim, dude?" Kyle asked, still amazed that Stan hadn't missed a single car that he'd aimed at, where as he had missed twice. "I fucking missed twice."

"You're drunk," Stan said simply, trying not to put down Kyle's lacking hand-eye coordination.

"So are you," he snorted, taking another hit.

"I'll teach you."

"Yeah, right!"

"No, really!" Stan insisted, taking another drag and bringing the slingshot in front of both their faces as though he were displaying it for the first time. He looked at it and then back at Kyle, handing him the joint. "Before the end of, it's over, er, I mean—before the end of the night, you'll hit a car."

Kyle laughed in disbelief in the middle of his drag, tossing the dead roach to the side and coughing out the following string of words. "You'll teach—uncoordinated Jew to—to hit a fast car—moving car with wet towel—wet—toilet paper?"

Stan laughed, patting his friend on the back to get him over his coughing spell.

"Don't belittle your own people, you stereotype!"

And then they were off again, laughing like a pair of tipsy, stoned hyenas.


	5. Speak

Kyle Broflovski had been trying to fall asleep for the past... He looked at the clock. Four hours. Four hours staring at the ceiling, the window, the door; rolling over from side to side on his bed trying to not think about the party he decided he just couldn't go to. He wasn't a big drinker (unless he was having fun with his friends) and being around that many drunk people was just not an appealing concept to him right now... He also wasn't going to risk seeing Stan making out with some random girl from class, trying to erase away the 'gay' he so badly was too ashamed to be. It was just pathetic.

Not to mention hurtful as fuck.

He closed his eyes, refusing to glance at his phone to check for what he already knew wouldn't be there...and not ten minutes after he started to finally relax enough to doze off,—

_ Fate fell short this time_

_Your smile fades in the summer_

_Place your hand in mine_

_I'll leave when I wanna... _

He jumped, sitting up and staring at his blinking, vibrating phone. Who the hell was calling him at this hour? he asked himself, pretending he didn't already sense it—didn't already feel Stan in the room somehow. He picked it up, looking at the front screen and rolling his eyes both in annoyance that he would dare call him and in purposeful self-contradiction of his newly racing heart. _He must be drunk._ It was almost two in the morning, and Bebe's party was probably only starting to kind of wind-down, if that. His anger told him to ignore it, but his curiosity as to why he was calling and his gut instinct that he should pick up overruled it.

"Hello?"

"..." Stan hadn't expected him to actually pick up. He closed his eyes in acknowledgement of the poor, poor choice he had just made. Fucking alcohol.

Kyle rolled his eyes again.

"Stan, what." It wasn't really a question. More like a statement that he knew he wanted to say something and wanted him to just spit it out, so that he could yell at him for daring to call, hang up, and go back to bed.

"...I... I don't know why I'm..." Stan sighed, nervous, frightened, defiant somehow. He took a swig of the Jose Cuervo bottle. "You don't care."

"I don't care what, Stan."

"About me."

Kyle's jaw locked. "Fuck you, Stan," he said, his anger flared up by his ex-best friend's selfish, stupid ass comment. _He_ was the one who apparently didn't care.

"No! No, wait, no," he backtracked, pinching his nose before taking another swig. He shook off the immediate urge to throw up, and tried to continue. "No, I'm sorry, that was dumb. That was—"

"Retarded," Kyle finished simply. "Can I go back to bed now, please?"

"You're so angry..."

Kyle blinked, feeling like he was suddenly being told by some crock-of-shit therapist things he already knew very well. "Did you expect me not to be?"

"No, I guess not."

Silence filled the airwaves of both phones.

"I'm gonna go now," Kyle stated. But for whatever reason, he couldn't find the will to hang up the phone. He needed Stan to say something. Anything. And he couldn't let him know that, so he had to just hope that he would—

"Please don't."

"Then say whatever it is you need to say."

"I can't," he tried to explain, taking another swig and choking on it slightly, coughing. "I'm... I'm trying, I just... Kyle."

"What."

"Kyle, I'm not gonna sit here and... It's not reasonable. It's not... rational. Rational, God, what the fuck is rational anyway? This shit is supposed to be irrational, anyway, right? But, like, in a good way... That's what they always say, isn't it? That this stuff isn't rational. That it doesn't make sense, and it does make sense. It makes sense by not making sense." He pushed his bottle-wielding hand on his forehead, as though he were trying to urge the thoughts out. "And-and when you feel it, you finally get that. You get... you understand the irrational as rational... Is this irrational in a good way?"

"Stan... what the fuck amount of alcohol is speaking this nonsense for you?" Kyle asked, sure that he would have been able to smell the stench of liquor through the phone if technology had those abilities. "How much have you had? You sound fucking trashed."

"I _am_ fucking trashed," he said, taking another long swig. "Hah, I smell like Kenny's house."

"Don't let him hear you say that," Kyle interjected, stifling the laugh that almost escaped him.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. The slight burst of humor, however, made his stomach lurch. "Eugh... Think I might throw up soon. Think that might be now. Like, right now. Shit," he gagged, reeling forward. "Hold on a—"

Kyle heard the distant sounds of Stan's spray of sick hitting the whatever he was sitting on over the speakers of his phone. Judging by the length of time he was unable to speak, Kyle calculated that his friend was really pushing his own limits. Either that or he had the plague. And he couldn't help wishing he was next to him, so he could push his hair back, chide him for drinking too much, laugh at his silly drunken mumblings, and get him some bread and water. Just like they always did for each other.

"Ugh, should've eaten today. That was ouch. Stomach acid only."

"Get some bread and water."

"No, thanks, Jose Cuervo can help me out." He took another, albeit small, sip.

"You've had enough," Kyle insisted, starting to get worried.

"Nope."

"Yes, you have. I can hear it in your voice. Now, go get some bread and water and get yourself home," he said, phrasing it more like a command than a suggestion. Stan, though drunk, managed to pick up on his tone.

"You can't tell me what to do. You're not my boyfriend."

Instantly he knew that he'd just killed whatever chances of continuing this chat right then and there. The panic that rose up from inside was frighteningly quick in arrival, and Stan almost threw up again from it.

"Have a nice night, Stan," he said curtly, preparing to hang up.

"Fuck! No, no, please wait! Please, Kyle, I—" he begged, cursing the alcohol before taking yet another drink. "It's not what I came to, I mean, called to—not what I called to say, I just—"

"Then say whatever you need to fucking say, Goddammit, so I can go back to bed!"

"I just... I need to tell you," he prepared himself. It was now or never. "I have to say it. If you don't say it, then it's not said, and it needs to be said. You don't get it. It's like poison if I don't."

"THEN SAY IT."

Stan briefly flashed back to the last time Kyle had said those exact words, exactly two weeks ago. He mumbled something that sounded like 'God, I'm so sorry for that' and took a deep breath, ready to fuck it all and jump in the deep end. His moment of truth had come, and he wasn't going to miss it. "Kyle. You need to know. You _must_ know just how badly I nee—"

"Stan! Stan, where the fuck—STAN! There you—where did you get that bottle?!" Kenny came bounding down the steps of the back porch and attempted a grab at the Jose Cuervo in his hand, causing the raven haired boy to drop his phone onto the a patch of grass in the snow, leaving Kyle to listen to everything. "Who were you calling? Butters! BUTTERCUP, I found him!"

"Coming!" Stan heard Butters' voice call out from inside. A few moments later, he was stumbling down the steps towards Kenny and Stan, who was sure he was about to do something important, but couldn't remember what through the bewilderedness of getting jumped on by his friends.

"Who were you calling? Tell me you didn't call Kyle, PLEASE tell you didn't, say to me you didn't call Kyle," he picked up Stan's phone, who suddenly remembered what he had been in the middle of and started bellowing tidings of 'GIVE ME THE PHONE, KENNY!' at the top of his lungs while Kenny and Butters wrestled him still. "Hello? Shut _up_, Stan! Kyle? Dammit, it's Kyle. Kyle?"

"Yeah, dude, it's me."

"Dude, I'm sorry, I know I promised I wouldn't let him call," he apologized, trying to help Butters pry the bottle out of Stan's hand amidst his continued protestations. "Give me the fucking thing, Stan, dammit, you've had ENOUGH. Kyle? Sorry, you can go back to bed now."

"What's going on over there? Is Stan okay?" He found it very hard to hide the worry in his voice, but he did his best. Kenny sounded drunk too, so he probably didn't notice.

"Not really, he's washing the puke out his mouth with more fucking shots," Kenny explained, trying to pull Stan up off the grass by the crook of his arm. "Mother fucker... what is WITH you, you have a death wish or something?"

Somewhere in the distance of the phone, Kyle heard Stan's "Maybe."

"Stan, don't say things like that!" Butters chimed in from somewhere.

"Kyle, I'll call you tomorrow, okay? We've got it," Kenny told him, hanging up the phone over Kyle's voiced protest.

"Wait, is Sta—?" The sound on the phone cut off into silence, and Kyle was left staring at the length of the call blinking 16:48 at him. His heart and mind seemed consumed with only two questions: was Stan okay? and what the hell was he going to say to him before Kenny found him?

He stared at the phone for a few more minutes before pulling on a pair of jeans, some shoes, grabbing his keys and walking out the door.

* * *

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO!? I WAS ABOUT TO MAKE EVERYTHING—EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO BE OKAY, YOU STUPID, YOU FUCK, KENNY!"

"Stan, calm down RIGHT NOW."

"NO! YOU RUINED EVERYTHING!" Stan screamed, using all his strength to push both Kenny and Butters away and get on his feet, wobbling intensely as he monologued in drunken rage at them. "I WAS GOING TO FIX IT!"

"Stan-Stan, please, calm down, okay? We can talk to Kyle in the morning, when you're, when we're all not all drunkies," Butters said.

"God, who the fuck says 'drunkies?!' You're such a fucking—you're so annoying!"

"Stop it, Stan," Kenny warned, sensing where this was going. He watched him kill the bottle, wiping his mouth sloppily and starring wasted daggers at them both. "You're going to give yourself alcohol poisoning."

"Good."

"Stan, that's not nice about yourself! That's not a nice thing to say about yourself, not a nice wish, no," Butters mumbled, bumping his fists together in a way that was purely Butters. "No, don't say that, we want you safe. And that's not nice."

"Goddammit, Butters, you are such a fucking pussy!" Something had snapped for Stan. The back of his mind was telling him to 'shut up, shut up now;' the part that could see Kenny growing angrier as he sat on the grass looking up at him warned him for his safety and the safety of his two last remaining friendships. But Stolichnaya, Jose Cuervo, Beefeater and the death-punch had control of his tongue right now. "You're always so 'oh don't do that,' 'oh, that's dangerous,' 'oh, be nice, be nice, that's mean, don't say that,' FUCK, just shut UP, already! It's so fucking annoying! Don't you get tired of it!? Sunshine and rainbows, Hello Kitty bullshit! You'd think a kid like you who'd seen the shit you've seen... you get treated like SHIT, Butters! You've always gotten walked all over by _everyone_, and still, oh, I'm Mr. Optimism! Mr. Everything's-Always-Okay! God, you'd probably thank someone who raped and tortured you for not having killed you instead or something! Not everything has a fucking silver lining, Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, Mr. Everything's-Okay—Mr. Bullshit is more like it!" He saw that Butters had started to well-up, but continued to ignore the warning flags in his mind and finished the insult. He looked straight at him and lifted a pointed, accusatory finger, empty bottle in hand. "You live in a fantasy world. No wonder everybody tramples you. What else can you expect to happen when you're are the way you are?" he scoffed. "You're nothing but a fucking pushover."

Next thing he knew, he was doubled over and flying backwards through the air before hitting the ground with a resounding, hard thud. He felt the front of his shirt being pulled up and forward before Kenny's fist wasted no time in making itself acquainted with Stan's face.

"Kenny! Kenny, no!" Butters cried out, rushing over to stop him from beating the living shit out of Stan. He grabbed his arm before he could land another one, but was too weak to stop his boyfriend's physical strength and was sent sailing over to hit the snow-patched ground with a muffled little 'uff.' Kenny stopped, eyes widening at the sight of poor, dizzied Butters before getting up off of Stan to start hugging, apologizing, and kissing him everywhere.

"Buttercup, I'm sorry, shit, I'm sorry!" He put his hand under his head and checked for bumps or cuts. Butters wheezed, winded, and reached up to touch Kenny's face.

It started off with a chuckle, and it grew from there. The ridiculousness of the situation sent first Stan, then Butters, then Kenny into a fit of laughter that became steadily unstoppable. Within thirty seconds, all of them were doubled over as though they had just seen the funniest thing in the world and it had crippled them. Stan looked over at Butters, whose crying had transitioned from having been insulted, to tears produced from laughing so hard, and grabbed for his hand, which the fair-haired optimist gratefully accepted. They continued, the laughter almost silent from lack of breath, until it became too much for Stan and he threw up again.

"Dude, my shoes!" Kenny cried in protest. Butters just laughed even harder, calming down enough to say:

"They're not more dirty than they were a second ago! The puke is gunna make 'em maybe less dirty!"

Kenny shoved him playfully, taking the quip in stride. "Hey, you shut up, you."

Stan sat up and let go of Butters' hand. He looked around the backyard, feeling the side of his face right next to his nose where Kenny had punched him. His nose was slightly bleeding and his upper lip was split. He would have groaned or complained if he wasn't so dead sure he'd deserved it. He was about to start apologizing profusely when he spotted his phone where it was lying and scrambled over to it.

"Kyle? Hello? Kyle!?" Looking at the device, he saw that the call had ended a while ago. Hot, angry tears sprung to his eyes very quickly and he put his hands, cradling the phone in his lap, his body starting to shake with too much of everything. He hit the ground with his fist, phone in hand, saying 'no, no, no' over and over again with increasing volume on each hit. Butters stopped laughing, and Stan felt him and Kenny start to pull him to his feet. "NO! Just leave me alone, please, just leave me alone..."

"We're not going to do that, dude," said Kenny. "We're your friends. Now, come on, we gotta get you home."

"No, no you don't get it!" he protested, pushing his weight down against their efforts in an attempt to remain curled up on the frosted grass. "I was so close, I was so close, I was going to say it! I could feel it, I was going to say it! I don't know what exactly, but I was... I was gonna say _something_..."

"Whatever it was, you can say it tomorrow, Stanie," Butters reasoned, pulling with the little strength he had at his arm, trying to aid Kenny in getting him on his feet.

"NO! God, you don't GET IT! That was it! That was the time to,—that was my, my window!" he flailed violently, forcing them to let go and watch him collapse back on the ground. His shoulders shuddered heavily as his body was wracked with sobs. "I was going to tell you, Kyle! I was going to tell you something! I SWEAR I was going to! GOD FUCKING DAMMIT. KYLE!"

Kenny knelt down clumsily and sat on the ground in front of Stan, putting his hand on his friend's quivering shoulder and bringing himself to his eye-level. "Come on, let's go home."

"I was going to tell him," he mumbled, sniffling.

"Did you really want to say something like that, something that important, because of, because of being drunk?"

Stan breathed deeply in an attempt to settle himself before shaking his head 'no.'

"So, don't you think it's time to go home?"

A pause before he gave him a small nod. He put his arm around Kenny's shoulders, ready to be helped to his feet.

"I wanna die," he mumbled.

"No, you don't. Trust me," Kenny chuckled cynically.

"But, I do."

"Come on, Stan, stop being a such a Drama Queen. This isn't you," he reasoned, pulling the weight of both of them to a stand. "Babe, a little help?" he said to Butters, looking over and seeing that he wasn't next to them anymore. "Butters?"

"He went to get your coats. My car's on the other side of the street. And I have the heater running, so, let's go."

The sound of Kyle's real-life voice floating through the air made Stan's knees buckle enough to send him and Kenny back down to the floor.


	6. Possessed

**IMPORTANT A/N: The bulk of this chapter is heavy, descriptive lemon. I understand that some people can't deal with that, so if you're one of those people, look for the •º•º•º• that designates the start and end of it. However, I don't write smut, and a lot of the emotion is contained in that part. So, if you're one of those prudes, get the fuck over it and read the whole thing. That's my advice. Otherwise, what the hell are you doing reading an M-rated fanfic?**

**April 3rd, 2:45am**

**Four weeks ago.**

**

* * *

**

"Ok, how 'bout... Bebe, um... Annie, and Red."

"Uf," Stan inhaled, pondering as he stared up at the clear, heavily-starred sky. "Lemme think... dude, they're all kinda slutty."

"I know, that's why it's a hard question."

"Goddamit... Okay, um, marry...uh, Red? Kill Annie and fuck Bebe...?" His face twisted in confusion and he shook his head slightly. "Ugh, but, fuck that, I don't wanna be married to Red. Craig would kill me in my sleep."

"Yeah, but you have to kill Annie—I'd kill Annie." Kyle sniggered. "If you fuck her, who knows what might happen to you. You'd probably die from whatever you'd catch." He burst out laughing before covering his mouth, eyes slightly going wide before he closed them, giggled silently. "Oh my God, that sounds so mean!"

"Whatever, dude, it's a valid point," Stan laughed. "Yeah, have to kill Annie. If I marry Bebe, do I have to sleep with her?"

"Umm..." Kyle mused, cracking up slightly as he shrugged his shoulders as best he could while lying face-up on a rock. "No?"

"Okay, then, marry Bebe, kill Annie, fuck Red."

"Really?" Kyle asked, somewhat surprised. "I would'a thought you would'a thought Bebe was hotter than Red."

"She is, but she's a prude."

"Never would've guessed as much up in that tree-house way back when," Kyle said, remembering how hard-up Bebe had been to kiss him back before they'd hit double digits. He burst out with a guttural 'HA!' that filled the night air, echoing once before vanishing, and he clamped his hands over his mouth. "Oh, god, don't tell her I said that! She's still my fucking lab partner!"

"Oh God, shut up, dude. Who cares?" Stan said, almost rolling his eyes as he shoved Kyle's shoulder with his own—a thing made easy by the proximity at which they were lying next to each other. "School's almost over, you'll probably never see her again... Besides, who's gonna hear you but me?"

"Yeah, you're right," Kyle smiled, turning his head back to the sky. "Who cares what they think, anyway?"

Stan blinked slowly, flashing a glance at Kyle which stuck only a whole of three seconds before he caught himself and joined his friend in star-gazing.

'_Who cares what they think, anyway?'_

He turned his head to look at Kyle properly, who was still looking at the night, smiling a soft smile which Stan's lips would soon imitate; although with a much more significant softness which he had yet to understand. He felt a pull in his chest in the direction of his best friend; a pull which took with it all of his air. He didn't even notice he wasn't breathing until his lungs became pained from a lack of oxygen, and he took a deep, silent breath. With every inhale, he felt more and more like he was losing the air he was trying to supply, but, somehow, it felt... good? He had no words to explain what he was feeling, no way to describe the how and why of the tug coming from his heart; and it scared the living shit out of him. He stayed staring, smiling at Kyle until he noticed Kyle's smile had faded.

"Something wrong?"

Kyle continued staring upwards, his eyes moving slightly with the speed of his thoughts. Had it been a little lighter out, Stan might have noticed sooner that they had started to water.

"I'll never see her again," he said blankly. Stan furrowed his brow.

"Who, Bebe?"

"Yeah."

Stan paused, confused. Was Kyle confessing some sort of secret crush on Bebe? The thought immediately took on a life of it's own, making Stan feel like he wanted to throw up. He envisioned them kissing. If he had claws, they would have come out right then and there. _Find Bebe and rip her head off._ Why did he want to rip her head off? _That makes no sense, she didn't do anything. The slut. But still... fucking bitch; wait, what? Stan, shut UP_.

"I, um," he stumbled, trying to sound as normal as possible while freaking out inside over why the hell he was freaking out inside. "I didn't know you liked her, dude... she is pretty hot, though, so—"

"No, no, don't be a retard," Kyle said simply, not stopping in his original thought long enough to laugh at the misunderstanding. Stan couldn't laugh either. The wave of relief that was passing over him was much more intense than it had any right to be. _What the fuck is going on here?_

"It's just that..." Kyle sighed. He pushed his palms against his eyes briefly, wiping away the tears. "I don't know... It's all ending, dude. I mean... I mean, when's the next time we're gonna see Kenny? ...Christmas? ...What about four years from now, when we stop coming to South Park? If we stop coming to South Park..." he paused, his eyes steady on the stars. "Do you ever think you'll ever stop coming here? I mean... Christmas, anywhere but in South Park... I've never been anywhere but here. How can I have Christmas anywhere else? Does that even make sense?"

"You're Jewish."

"You know what I mean, dipshit," Kyle rebutted, slightly annoyed at his friend's poor timing for that joke. "I mean... everything is going to change now. Butters... Butters is off to Jersey. Fucking Jersey. You know how far Jersey is from us? One thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-nine miles... One thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-nine miles, Stan! When you add in Berkeley and Stanford, its a thousand plus miles more! When the fuck are we ever going to see him again?" He paused again, seemingly having trouble getting through his vocalized worries. Stan wanted to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, but he was frozen. "And you know how much Kenny loves him... He's not gonna stay in South Park too long... I mean, it's Kenny. He'll find a way over there. So, where the fuck are we without Butters and Kenny? I mean... will we ever see them again? We can't out-rule the possibility that we won't."

"No," Stan answered, his thoughts on the exact same page as the pensive redhead next to him. "No, I guess not."

"Fuck," he whispered softly, a fresh tear slipping out the corner of his eye before he attacked it dry with the back of his hand.

"Hey, dude," Stan soothed, lowering his voice. "It's gonna be okay. If you really want to see someone again, you can make that happen, you know? We'll see them again. That's what airplanes are for, right?" He unfroze, putting his hand on Kyle's shoulder but completely oblivious to the fact that his thumb was grazing it softly in comfort. Instinct.

"But we're going to grow up, you know? We are... what about after—after Berkeley. I mean, what if... what—what if I _h-had_ picked Stanford... w-would I ever see you?"

Stan blinked at Kyle, pausing for about half a minute before he propped himself up on his elbow, looking very seriously into his friend's now misty eyes.

"You want to go to Stanford."

"What? No, that's not—" he muttered, looking away and battling more threats of tears with furious blinks. "That's not what I'm... not what I'm talking about."

"I know that's not what you're talking about," he said firmly, moving his head further up so Kyle couldn't avoid looking at him. "But that's what you're saying."

"Stan, I just wanna know if we'd still see each other, dammit," he deflected, looking away in stubborn fashion. Just then, they heard the distant sound of an approaching car.

"Shit, get up quick! I have to show you how to do this!" he laughed, grabbing the water, toilet paper clump, and slingshot. Kyle sat up as quickly as he could as Stan came around to sit behind him, his legs on either side of Kyle's. He was very unaware that he'd just effectively placed his best friend in his lap, pushed as close as they could be under those circumstances. The slight, cold breeze blew his scent directly into Stan. Mind was probably the furthest thing he felt at that moment. He put the slingshot in Kyle's hand, reaching over with his own to guide him into perfect aim. "Ok, now, let go the minute the car enters your peripheral vision, but don't look at the car, okay, ready?"

"No!"

"Ready... and... let go let go let go!"

He felt them both release the end of the slingshot, and watched almost in slow-motion as the wad of wet tissue splattered across the windshield... of a cop car.

"Oh, FUCK!"

The blue and red incognito lights flashed on with the sound of a siren as Sergeant Yates climbed out of his car, running up the side of the rock to get at whoever had thrown what they'd thrown. Through a tide of muttered 'fuck's,' 'shit's,' and 'run, run, run's,' Stan and Kyle scrambled to shove everything in Stan's backpack as they scampered off the other side down the rock.

"Fuck, dude, fuck! Run!" Kyle whispered loudly, panting and laughing as they got to the bottom of the rock, barely out-running the light of the flashlight as they hid in a corner of the boulder, their bodies covered from sight by a snow-covered bush. They could see Stan's car parked only a few meters away. He put the backpack down quietly, trying to calm down his breathing as he felt Kyle's equally out-of-breath breath mingling with his own.

That was when he put his finger on it.

That was when he figured it out; the pull, the heart-rate raising something... Every part of them was pressed up against the other's in their attempt to avoid Yates, who was now shining his flashlight into Stan's car, groaning and grumbling about 'those stupid little assholes.' He heard him walk off, and became even more aware of the fact that, even though they would soon be able to move out of there, he really, really didn't want to.

Kyle let out a soft laugh, and made to move out from behind the bush before Stan's arm stopped him. He sensed Kyle's breathing kick up a notch as Stan pressed his forehead against his. He felt himself gulp softly, taking in the smell of alcohol and cigarettes emanating from Kyle's lips. As soon as his eyes fluttered shut, his instincts took him over. Something inside him dimmed down and off like a light bulb, waking something else up out of the shadows. He grazed their cheeks together, softly brushing the tip of his nose in little aimless patterns on Kyle's face.

"S-Stan...?"

"Mm?" he responded lazily, completely out of control with what he was doing but making a conscious choice to not question any of it. It just felt right. And right now, he didn't need to understand anything beyond that. He landed little kisses on Kyle's ear, tracing the outside rim with his tongue slightly before Kyle pushed him away a little, looking him in the eyes, flustering slight pinks on his cheeks. Stan's bright blues stared at him smokily from behind the shadow of his dark, dark hair, like he was lost in a trance of want that he would not soon come out of.

"S-Stan."

"What."

"What... what, are you," Kyle gulped, stuttering under Stan's unfaltering, relaxed, confident gaze. "What are we doing?"

"I have no fucking idea," he said simply, moving their lips closer. His sober self no longer had any say in anything that he was doing, saying, or wanting. Whatever it was that had a hold of him now was not going to let go until it got what it needed; and it needed Kyle. Bad.

He had never kissed anyone like that before.

Not anyone. Not even Wendy.

No, this was kissing on some kind of primal, uninhibited level he'd never experienced until that moment. The second his lips came in contact with Kyle's, a spark went off in his head; a spark that told him to savor every bit of what he had in front of him. He dragged Kyle down into a kiss that was pure. Hungry. Wanton. Beautiful.

He felt Kyle pull away a couple times in protest, but always resigning himself back into the lock. Stan felt himself getting frustrated with the teasing portion of it all, pushing every bit of feeling into what he was doing. Kyle was going to give in. Kyle _had _to give in. He sensed his apprehension finally fall apart when he felt him grab a fistful of his hair from under the red-poof-ball hat, his other hand gripping his shoulder, and thanked his lucky stars he wasn't being pushed away anymore. When he felt them both getting hard, he knew it was over. This was happening. And this was happening now.

"Come on," he panted, breaking the kiss to grab the backpack and grab Kyle by the hand, leading them over to the car. He could tell that Kyle's hand, which was shaking, was not doing so from the cold. He unlocked the car, opening the back side-door to put down the backseat, leaving an expanse of flat, open space behind the driver and shotgun chairs. He looked at Kyle. Kyle looked scared out of his mind. But Stan wasn't thinking of fear._ No, step one: turn on the heater_.

So he did.

_Step two: get Kyle in the car_.

Stan put a gentle hand under Kyle's chin to make him look at him, staring at him through half-lidded, darkened eyes; a man possessed. His hand slipped down to Kyle's waist, pulling them close before brushing their lips together. He felt him sigh, and smiled, stepping a few steps backwards until they were next to the waiting, open door of the car.

"Fucking shit," Kyle breathed, climbing into the back and pulling Stan in with him. They shut the door. "Stan... what are we doing?"

Unfortunately for Kyle's answer, it was going to have to wait to be put into words until Stan found words again. He had lost his ability to form them. They seemed so unbelievably unnecessary in that moment, that talking was going to prove unavailing in getting his answer across. No, the only way to explain was to do. So he did. Putting his hands on the rough, car furniture, he stalked Kyle down to the horizontal, positioning them so that he was propped on top of him, hands on either side of his shoulders.

"Stan, what—"

"Stop asking, Goddammit," he snapped, completely taken over by feeling, abandoned by reason, and enslaved by his need to do whatever it was his body was going to do. Asking questions was distracting him, and anything distracting him from Kyle was going to piss him off immensely right now. Even if it was Kyle, who searched his eyes as little beads of sweat formed on his forehead when Stan gently removed the green hat and tossed it to the side. He ran his fingers through Kyle's soft, red locks, causing the other to flutter his eyes shut and smile. Oh, that fucking gorgeous smile.

Stan captured Kyle's lips with double the passion he had outside, his hands roaming where they may: under his shirt, over his thighs, pulling him close, pulling at his clothes; doing everything and anything they deemed necessary to bring them closer. The friction was becoming unbearable for both of them, and Stan's moving against Kyle wasn't helping much... or maybe it was. It all depended on how they looked at it. He felt Kyle reach down, pushing his hand in-between them. The feeling of Kyle's hand groping and rubbing his incarcerated length elicited a deep, primal growl out of Stan, pushing him over the millionth edge he'd already fallen over that night. He ground himself into Kyle's hand, reaching down to the hem of his shirt before sliding his hands up under it. Kyle sat up heatedly, ripping off his own coat and shirt before Stan even had a chance. His desperation lit his lust even further, and he grinned.

∞—•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•—∞

* * *

_My god, belt buckles are annoying_, he thought to himself as he watched Kyle shakily but confidently remove both of theirs. He moved on to the buttons and zippers, and Stan found those even more maddening than the buckles. They were taking too long to come off. Or maybe Kyle was doing that on purpose? He counted the seconds it took Kyle to zip him down, and was convinced he was being teased. Maybe he was just impatient, but he felt like a kid who was being forced to watch someone else open his biggest Christmas gift... only much, much less innocent; and a quite a little more feral. As soon as he saw Kyle's zipper was unzipped, he leaned back on his knees, straddling the body beneath him and brought his hands first to the edge of, and then to the legs of Kyle's jeans, ripping them off with such zeal that he made Kyle gasp, which, in turn, made Stan smile. He looked down at the almost-naked form of his best friend, nearly freezing in his movements to take it in. He gazed at his thighs and worked his way up. The strained member beneath the boxers made him smile, and he brushed his fingers over it, causing Kyle to close his eyes and arch himself forward, obviously wanting more. But it was Stan's turn to tease. He walked his index and middle finger over Kyle's belly button, tracing patterns on his slim, but defined stomach. He studied every ripple of every muscle, and every new ripple it made when he touched it. Tracing the tips of his fingers over Kyle's neck, he stopped his roaming eyes at Kyle's and left them there. He looked like he couldn't believe what was happening; like he was dreaming and was mortally torn between questioning it and just enjoying it. He watched him close his eyes and whisper.

"Stan..."

_Step three: stop staring, start doing._

He leaned down and kissed Kyle with the same fervor that pertained to the whole night, cradling his head in his arms and running his fingers through his hair. He felt Kyle's hands push into the sides of his coat, discarding it spiritedly before giving the same treatment to his shirt. The eagerness with which Kyle was pulling at his clothes only made him want him more. He had reached a point where he thought he couldn't possibly want anything more until he felt the warming air of the car hit his legs, the realization that only two thin sheets of cotton underwear was standing between him and nirvana.

There were very few things on this Earth that Stan Marsh really understood, and this was one of them: he had never felt so good, so fully alive, so turned on as he did when he slowly stripped Kyle of his last scrap of armor. Another? That every time he thought he couldn't want him more, he wanted him _more_. It was pushing far beyond the limits of want he never knew he had. He heard the object of his affections whimper ever-so-softly underneath him, obviously insecure about being seen completely naked by his best dude. His bro. His guy-friend. Stan frowned, not wanting Kyle to think he was disgusted or un-attracted. It couldn't be father from the truth. Not right now.

"Stop it, Kyle. You have nothing to be ashamed of," he said softly but firmly as he leaned down closer, removing his own boxers as he kissed Kyle's neck, shoulders, and chest. "There, even."

He watched Kyle's eyes travel up and down his own body just as his had only moments before, and didn't feel a pang of nervousness. He knew Kyle found him attractive. He'd known it all along. He just hadn't let himself know it. He had been into girls all his life, his brain had developed a filter for all those thoughts he wasn't used to. But even that part of him that was still convinced he was straight couldn't find words to complain about what was happening when he grabbed hold of Kyle and started softly stroking. The red head arched up into his hand, scratching the surface of the folded-down seat in agony-disguised ecstasy, his lips parting in a sharp inhale and eyes fluttering shut in tandem with the slow exhale that followed a pause in his breathing—like he'd forgotten how. His head was thrown back, and his hands kept moving up and down slightly like he wanted to reach up for something but didn't have the cognitive ability to do so at the moment. Stan had never seen such a sight.

He sped up the pace of his hand, doing to Kyle what he knew from being a guy he would want done. Everything he did seemed to be the exact thing to do, like he'd done it before but just didn't remember. He knew every tick, every sensitive spot, everything that made him squirm, and he never guessed wrong. All he had left to figure out was how to make him scream. And then a light went off in his head.

It had to be something Kyle had never experienced before. And he had to prepare him for what was coming anyway. He brought his left hand to Kyle's lips, tracing his index finger over them in a plea for permission to open them, stalling his strokes momentarily. Kyle obliged, looking up at Stan. Blue told green to let him in, and Kyle kissed Stan's finger before doing to it what his lips would have been doing further down south if he had had control of the situation. The simple act of Kyle sucking his finger made Stan want to skip the foreplay and fuck him senseless. When he was satisfied that he got what needed, he started to stoke again, making Kyle fall backwards into a moan. He brought his finger to Kyle's entrance, pushing it in slowly and watching Kyle go from boneless to rigid and back again.

"A-ah..."

He moved his finger in a circle, both to stretch him out and to try finding his place to focus on. He slid in another finger, feeling Kyle tense up again before relaxing into it. He circled around for not ten seconds before Kyle jerked in tandem with a sharp intake of breath, followed by a loud moan of Stan's name. He brushed over that spot again, to make sure, smiling broadly when he got a similar reaction.

He increased the speed of his hands and fingers. Kyle was really losing it now. His hands were alternating between pounding down on the coarse fabric of the car and scratching at it like his life depended on it. His moans increased in volume; a jumbled mess of 'fuck,' 'God,' 'ah,' 'yes,' and 'Stan.' And then Stan felt him tense up in a very significant way.

"Shit—Shit, Stan, I'm gonna—"

And then he did. His right hand flew up to grab the head of the driver's seat, back arching up as he released onto his stomach. Stan slowed down, riding him out and watching him fall back down onto the 'floor,' boneless. His body was shaking, his breath labored, his forehead forming beads of sweat as Stan noticed that the car's windows were fogging up fast. He reached over and turned off the heater. Not that it would make too much of a difference, considering what was left to happen.

Kyle looked up at Stan, sitting up slightly and reaching out to return the favor, but the raven shook his head. He reached his hand over to the back of Kyle's neck and pulled him close, kissing him as his other hand swiped the come off his stomach. Kyle stopped.

"Uh, I can, um, do that—if you want. I have tissues—" Kyle stuttered, finding speech wildly uncomfortable before Stan cut him off with a simple shake of the head. He watched, half-horrified, half-turned-on-as-fuck as Stan lubricated himself with his own seed. "What the—"

"I don't have lube. We need lube. Otherwise, it's gonna hurt like a motherfucker," he explained, surprisingly non-chalant about his pretty kinky gesture. When he was done, he picked Kyle up with a strength only Stan had and hovered him slightly over his lap, his legs wrapping around his backside. He positioned himself at his entrance. "And I don't want to hurt you."

He felt the tip of him push past the entrance and stalled, allowing Kyle time to adjust to the invasion. Already he could tell this wasn't going to last too long. It just felt too damn good.

He pushed in a little deeper and both of them gritted their teeth; one from pain, one from ohfuckthisfeelsamazing. He heard Kyle's breath pick up sharply and felt his fingernails digging into his shoulder, so he kissed him gently everywhere he could reach, tasting the already generous layer of sweat that covered them both. The windows were completely fogged up now. He felt Kyle relax and let out a slow hiss of almost-pleasure, and Stan whispered a genuine 'I'm sorry' in his ear before sitting him down the rest of the way.

"AH!"

Kyle wrapped his arms around Stan in a powerful embrace, his hands gripping but slipping slightly on his muscular back. Stan felt him bite down gently on his shoulder and mentally kicked himself for enjoying that simple act so much, when he knew it was happening because of pain. He continued to whisper apologies from the kisses he landed on Kyle's shoulders and neck, running lazy fingers up and down his back to try and soothe him and fighting the overwhelming urge to fuck him into oblivion.

"Kyle," Stan said huskily, unable to stay still any longer. "Kyle, I gotta move, I just have to." He readied himself to pull Kyle up and move him when his mind exploded at the feeling of Kyle moving himself. It was slow, and he was obviously still in some pain, but the way he was looking at Stan... he would have fallen over if Kyle hadn't been the one to gently push him down.

Kyle moved his legs so that he was on his knees and lifted himself almost completely off of Stan before slowly closing the gap again. Stan thought he might die from feeling so good, his hands reaching up to rest on Kyle's hips as he moved again. He couldn't resist moaning. He couldn't resist anything. He had never felt anything so good in his life. Wendy, that one night stand with Red, all sex he'd ever had before this didn't even seem to count as sex anymore. He looked up at Kyle, who had his head thrown back as he rode him, and had to grit his teeth not to not ruin it by coming right then and there.

"Stan—fuck, Stan."

"Fucking shit, you feel amazing," Stan managed to pant out before sitting up and bringing Kyle's legs back to where they were, wrapping themselves up in each other as he kissed him passionately, pushing in and out of him more quickly. Their hands were tangled up in each other's hair, moving down, roaming, feeling, wanting everything. He pushed in deeper, and Kyle spasmed, his voice failing to produce the moan it should have. Stan, it seemed, had found only one of two magic spots in Kyle earlier, and chuckled ever-so-slighlty as he pushed in again, and again, and again, making Kyle grip him and cry out:

"A-AH! God, oh, G-GOD—yes, fuck—"

Stan couldn't take it anymore. He'd repressed the urge to fuck them out of their bodies long enough. In one wild display of strength and surprising tact, he picked Kyle up and flipped him over on his back, managing to stay inside him but dizzying him as his head hit the fuzz of the car. He blinked, almost winded, and laughed for the half second it took Stan to get his bearings and move, turing his chuckle into a somewhat strangled cry of pleasure.

Something snapped. He picked up Kyle's hands and put them over his head, pushing in and out of him with an animalistic kind of fervor, going as deep, as hard, and as fast as he could go. The windows were so overwhelmed with the moisture that they had begun to drip on their own. Stan's body slid effortlessly over Kyle's, both of them drenched in sweat, neither of them caring one bit. They liked it that way. Kyle's constant stream of 'fuck, yes, Stan, god, fuck, fuck, Stan, yes,' was releasing some kind of lock he'd kept shut tight until then, and he let the last of his inhibitions go.

"Fuck, Kyle, god—goddamit, I'm gonna—"

"Stan, oh, GOD, STAN—I'm—" Kyle sputtered, the slippery friction of Stan's skin sliding over his length sending him once again over the edge, even harder than before. "STAN!"

"FUCK," Stan screamed, the word turning into a loud, screaming groan he only managed to stifle by kissing Kyle fiercely as he spilled over inside him. He saw stars in the back of his head as his body was completely rocked by his orgasm, still moaning loudly into Kyle's mouth as the other pulled him close and kissed him back, their movements slowing down. His heart was going to pop his chest open. He kissed him again, twitching as his body pushed out every last bit of himself into Kyle, moaning little moans as his arms, shaking, stopped holding him up and he collapsed.

∞—•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•—∞

* * *

Kyle brought a hand to Stan's sweat covered forehead, pushing back the hair and kissing him tenderly. Both of them were breathing like they had just been running for their lives. But, hadn't they?

He drew lazy shapes with his fingers on Stan's back, shapes Stan's brain was in no condition to decipher. Everything was winding down, and the reality of what they'd just done was creeping into his sobering brain. He felt the beginnings of a panic start to rise in his heart, and the fact that he felt so blown away by what had just happened was starting to seem very unsettling. It wasn't helping things that he couldn't help wanting to just lie there until the sun came up. But the Stan that had been overcome with desire, the man possessed by his sudden need for Kyle, was starting to fade... and the one who was Wendy's boyfriend was starting to realize he'd just cheated on her by fucking his best friend. Who was a dude. Fuck.

"Um, w-we should—" he stuttered, still lying on Kyle's naked torso, staring at the side 'wall' of the car. "We should probably get home."

"Mhmm," Kyle answered lazily, clearly still lost in the afterglow.

Suddenly, Stan didn't understand why he was fighting it off. This afterglow was pretty amazing, anyway. He closed his eyes.

"In a little bit," he reasoned, more with himself than with Kyle. There would be time to think about what had just happened when Kyle was gone. Right now, he was going to let himself enjoy this. It might, after all, have been a one-time-thing. Everyone would have a field-day if they found out... Kenny, Butters... they might not care... but Wendy? His dad? Kyle's mom? Shit.

'_Who cares what they think, anyway?'_

He smiled, propping himself up on his elbow and leaning down to kiss Kyle. Tenderly, sweetly... lovingly. He pushed away the panic and his red hair out of his face and returned the kiss on the forehead before moving down to kiss his lips again.

* * *

4:17 am meant that returning Kyle to his house was going to be an adventure of how-quiet-can-you-be. They couldn't risk Sheila catching Kyle getting home this late in the night. She'd throw a bitch-fit. Stan drove absurdly slowly to the front of the house, still buzzed from the alcohol and what-all-else, stopping on the other side of the street. He put the gear on park, and looked over at Kyle. He'd never let himself notice how Goddamn beautiful he was. His perfect, straight nose. His gorgeous combination of fire-hair and emerald green eyes. He felt like... he had no idea how to feel. But he felt something strong. A lot of things. What the fuck was he going to do now?

At least he managed to keep his inner freak-out silent.

"Let me know if she catches you," he told him, turning away to awkwardly look at the wheel of his car. He couldn't look anymore. Looking was just going to make him want to—

Kyle kissed him, pulling away to give him a soft smile that made Stan want to cry. He watched him quietly get out of the car, eyes following him until he disappeared into the house. The panic he'd felt before was threatening to overwhelm him as he quietly drove away in the direction of his house. When he got there, he closed the door to his room, put down his bag, fell on his bead and cried. Whatever part of his mind had gone into hibernation an hour or so ago was not only back, it was screaming. Panic, among other things, had swallowed him whole.


	7. Alone

"He went to get your coats. My car's on the other side of the street. And I have the heater running, so, let's go."

* * *

Stan's head shot up like a rocket at the sound of Kyle's voice, but only fast enough to catch a glimpse of the back of his head retreating into the house. His breathing just stopped happening, his knees buckled, and he dragged both himself and Kenny back down to the snow and grass.

"Ho-kay," Kenny breathed out, slightly shaken but somewhat amused. "Let's try this again: walking, take two. Come on." He readjusted Stan's arm around his shoulders and hoisted them both up, pulling forward to walk towards the steps. But Stan wasn't budging.

"Oh, no, no, no..." he murmured, his breathing coming back to him in hyperventilative manner. He shook his head from side to side, looking from the door to the ground, trying to pull Kenny backwards to walk in the other direction, even though the only thing they'd meet with is the fence surrounding the backyard. "No, no, no, no—"

"What the fuck do you mean, no, no, no?" Kenny snapped, annoyed at his friend's lack of human function. "Kyle's gonna give us a ride, and you're just gonna have to deal with it. It's smelling like it's gonna start to snow, and I'm not gonna walk the fuck home. I live the farthest away. Now, get your bare-ass feet out of the snow, let's find your goddamn shoes, and go sleep this shit off."

Kenny gave a generous pull forward and Stan stumbled slightly onto the first step of the back porch. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Kyle was here. Kyle was here to pick him up and take him home. Why the fuck... why was he here? Kyle wanted nothing to do with him, as far as he was concerned, right? Then again, he did pick up the phone... Why _did_ he pick up the phone?

Stan's mind was reeling back and forth, dizzied by questions and alcohol as he and Kenny moved from the kitchen through to the living room. He kept his eyes on the floor. His feet were a little blue, and he'd acquired a cut on his toe at some point during the night which was now freshly bleeding. He glanced up a little, looking around only long enough to see that most people had either gone home or passed out, leaving Bebe and Token alone on the dance floor. He glimpsed a bit of turquoise coming at them before the spinning of the room forced him to put his head back down in order to avoid vomiting straight-up in the living room.

"Found your coats," he heard Butters say before both his and Kenny's arms were holding him steady as they slipped it on him. "I can't find your shoes, Stanie."

If he had been looking at him, he would have seen the self-disappointed frown that was surely gracing his face, and felt a pang of guilt for what he'd said before. "S-okay, Butters. Not your fault," he muttered, eyes still on the floor as he swayed slightly back and forth on Kenny's weight. He looked at his feet again. "'sides, I got more, got more shoes... I don't care."

He could have sworn he'd felt them both look at each other and frown.

"Really, I don't," he insisted. "Let's just...let's just get home, ok?"

He felt Butters put a hand on his shoulder before swinging Stan's other arm around himself in an effort to help Kenny out. He felt them both move forward and stumbled along with them. He knew how it always went. When you're in a group of friends and you're all drinking... Someone gets too drunk? It forces everyone else to sober up... Or, at least, those who bother to take care of you to sober up. He felt so, so guilty.

"Thanks, you guys," he told them, as sincerely as he could, trying and failing to lift his head. Kenny chuckled out a 'For what?' and Stan squeezed his eyes shut, the combination walking and remorse making him feel nauseous. "For—for takin' care of me."

"Don't worry about it, Stan," Butters comforted. "It's not like you've never done the same for us. Remember you holding my hair back for an hour when I threw up my whole insides that night that—that," he choked, unable to recount what he was talking about. Stan knew very well what he was referencing, and half-smiled in gratitude, half-frowned at the memory as he heard Butters open the front door. They stepped outside, and he watched a cloud of cold breath form in front of him. Off in the distance, he heard the sounds of a running, parked car, and gulped, realizing again who was taking them home. He stopped walking a few steps down, feeling like he was about to cry.

"Stan, come on," Kenny urged softly, sensing why he wasn't moving anymore. "It's gonna be—"

"C-can I sit in the back...? please, let me sit in the back, please," he begged, feeling new tears start to sting the corners of his eyes. "I can't—I can't—"

"Shh," Butters whispered, and Stan felt his hand softly soothing his shoulder. "It's okay. I'll sit in the back with you. It'll be okay, okay?" He and Kenny nudged them all forward, and Stan nodded, resigned and scared, before stepping onto the pathway towards the street. The sound of Kyle's car was getting louder and louder. He neither could nor wanted to look up.

"Everyone okay? Where are his shoes?" He heard Kyle ask, the most concealed bit of anger in his voice coming through to only Stan, who seemed to be feeling everything Kyle must have been feeling about him about himself: disgust, annoyance, anger, and maybe a hint of worry? He heard Kenny tell him that they 'couldn't find them,' and could have sworn he felt Kyle's eyes roll in his head. _No_, he said to himself. _Just the first three_. He heard some doors opening and felt Butters and Kenny hoist him into the backseat, Butters clamoring along in with him. When they closed the door, the familiar smell of Kyle's car, which he hadn't experienced in what seemed like forever, made the tears he'd managed to hold at bay for that short time threaten him again. He pushed them back, trying to keep his constant crying to a minimum. He put his head on Butters' shoulder, and the small blonde, having done up his seatbelt already, put his arm around his own to comfort him.

"It's gonna be okay, Stanie," he whispered. Stan heard both the front doors open as Kyle and Kenny got in. He heard the gear go from parking to drive, and felt the car lurch forward. Butters gave his shoulder a squeeze before moving his hand up and down his right arm; his best attempt to calm him down. He looked up to see the side of Kyle's face, his red hair glinting with each passing of a street lamp. Stan started shaking silently, the proximity to Kyle becoming more unbearable by the second.

"Dude, you just passed Stan's house," he heard Kenny say. Kyle said nothing for a moment, and his heart skipped a few beats.

"Butters staying at your place tonight?" he heard him ask.

"Um, I dunno," Kenny mused, turning his body around to look at them. "Butters?"

"Well... my parents _are_ out of town," he responded, and Stan looked up in time to see them exchange a soft smile.

"Guess so," Kenny told Kyle, as they headed off in the direction of the McCormick residence. He lowered his voice. "We should—um, probably drop Stan off first... I mean, so you don't have to—"

"Your house is the farthest and I need to get home. This is faster," Kyle said curtly, his voice calm but tense.

"Dude, I don't think this is a good ide—"

"Drop it, Ken," their chauffeur said firmly, crossing over the tracks and coming to a stop in front of Kenny's place. He got out of the car, followed tentatively by Kenny. Stan heard the door on Butters' side open and felt himself being let go. Butters undid his seatbelt, climbing out of the car and offering Stan a helping hand. He looked out through the windows and saw Kenny and Kyle talking a few feet away from the car, about halfway between it and the front door. His heart started racing. He was going to be left alone with Kyle. He hadn't been alone with Kyle since—

_"It was a drunken mistake. I want to forget it." _

_"Finish."_

_"Kyle..."_

_"Finish what you started, Stan."_

_"...It meant nothing to me."_

"Butters," he pleaded, looking at the smaller boy desperately, panic in his eyes. "Butters, please, don't leave me alone with him, please—"

"Stan..."

He swung his legs out onto the asphalt, shaking. "Please—I can't, I just... Oh God, oh no, no, please, Butters, I can't!"

"Yes, you can, Stanie," he insisted, walking him over to the passengers side of the car. He opened the door and helped him inside. "Maybe he just wants to talk."

"I can't talk! I'm fucking wasted!" he said, a little more loudly than he'd intended. Out of the corner of his swaying peripheral vision, he saw them both look over at them briefly. He shut his eyes tight, already embarrassed as fuck. "I can't, he's gonna kill me—"

"Don't be stupid," Butters snapped, pulling Stan's legs up and sitting him down in the car seat properly before handling the seatbelt, buckling him in. "Kyle loves you, he's not gonna kill you."

"He doesn't love me, he hates me."

"If he hated you, then why'd he pick us up?"

Stan didn't have a good answer to that, so he settled for a stupid one. "To help you guys get home?"

"No," Butters explained, and Stan heard the first hint of vexation in his voice he'd ever heard. "He came after _you_ drunk-dialed him. He came for _you_. He dropped us off first." He sighed, putting a hand on his arm. "He obviously wants to talk, Stanie."

"Buttercup!" Kenny called out, and Stan saw him waving his partner over. Kyle was walking back towards the car.

"I gotta go..." Butters apologized, suddenly hugging him before whispering in his ear: "It'll be okay. You and Kyle... you'll be okay."

The eternal optimist.

Butters closed the car door and looked at Stan, who must've looked like he'd just been put in front of a firing squad. It was certainly how he felt. He watched him walk over to Kenny, the taller blonde putting an arm around his waist as they walked inside. They waved back at Stan. Then, just as Kenny had predicted, the snow finally started to fall. He heard Kyle open the door and climb in, and continued staring out the window, too scared to talk. Too scared to move. Too scared to breathe, even though he felt like he really needed to. The world was spinning as the car made a u-turn back in the direction of where they probably should have stopped first. Shit. Kyle was going to walk him into his house. Kyle was going to get him home. Stan couldn't help worrying he was going to just drop him off in front, kick him out of the car, and speed off. He'd certainly deserve it.

He remembered how desperate he'd been earlier to tell him all the things it had taken him so long to say, and found his voice and mind completely empty. He couldn't remember a thing, and yet, all the things he wanted to say were running an out-of-control carnival in his head. Voices and voices, sentences and pleas, apologies and confessions, all racing around at increasing volumes. He pinched the bridge of his nose, cringing.

"God, shut _up_," he said, unaware he'd said it out-loud.

"Excuse me?"

"What?"

"You just told me to shut up," he answered, turning the corner and stopping at a red light.

"I did? No, I didn't—shit, did I say that out-loud?" He was getting very nervous. This was the first time they'd talked face to face since—

"Yes, you did."

"No, I was talking to the voices in my head," he blurted out. He would have felt embarrassed, but he'd rather Kyle think he was crazy than think he'd told him to shut up. _Fuck, my heart. Fuck... fuck, fuck, fuck, that sounded dumb_. To his surprise, Kyle laughed. It was a nano-second of a laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Stan's heart fluttered. He made him laugh. He made him laugh. He smiled until he sensed Kyle's anger come back as they pulled up in front of house number 2001. He turned his head and watched Kyle turn off the car. They sat in silence for what Stan would have been convinced was forever had he not glanced at the clock and seen only three minutes pass; three minutes during which Kyle stayed staring straight out the windshield, his gaze unmoving. Finally, he heard him take a steady breath.

"You have no idea what you've done to me, Stan."

He didn't know what to say. He couldn't possibly be more consumed by guilt. He searched for words in his head, anything that could help make things better. He wanted to throw up again from the pressure and nerves.

"If it's anything like how I've felt for the past month," he said finally, hoping it wouldn't backfire. "Then I'm—"

He didn't get to say 'sorry.' Kyle had climbed out of the car so fast, it left Stan bewildered, watching him walk around the front to the passengers side. He saw him say something, but couldn't hear it. Kyle opened the door, his hand brushing Stan's hip as he undid his seatbelt. Chills went up and down his body, precursor only to the way he felt once Kyle put his arm under his shoulder to help him out of the car. He stepped onto the path, more aware-yet-unaware than ever that he was barefoot. Kyle hoisted him up, closing the car door and walking them both in the direction of the house. Talking was one thing. Talking for the first time had been jarring enough. Touching? Kyle was touching him. Stan's arm was around his shoulders, and he was leaning against the warmth that was Kyle Broflovski. Kyle's body. Kyle's hips, Kyle's legs, Kyle's arms, his... his... his.

"Keys," he heard him say, only then realizing they'd reached the front door. He still hadn't forgotten his unfinished apology.

"I'm sorry, Kyle—"

"Keys," he said again, reaching over to feel Stan's pockets, finding them in the left front one and fishing them out. Stan would have immediately started thinking about his late-grandfather to stop himself from getting hard if he hadn't been so floored by the most intimate contact with Kyle he'd had since—

"There," Kyle said, quietly unlocking the door and walking them both inside. He shut it as softly as he could, and hoisted Stan back up, who had begun to slip from paralyzation, unable to think of or feel anything other than the ghost of Kyle's hand in his front pocket. His heart was coming out of his ears, and he lurched forward, almost getting sick all over his living room. "Come on," Kyle whispered. "Bathroom."

They walked up the stairs, the nausea subsiding. Still, Stan couldn't escape being wrapped up in the recent memory of such a simple act. All he did was get his keys. Out of his pocket. It meant nothing. It just meant that Stan was too drunk to get them and Kyle wanted to go home. That's all it meant. To Kyle. To Stan it meant wishing desperately for sobriety, so he could just pin Kyle against the banister of the stairs and fuck him right there._ Fucking shit_. He had no idea what he'd just done to him.

Landing on the hallway, Kyle made for the bathroom but felt Stan pull away in the direction of his room. "I'm fine," he whispered, reaching out to open the door. Kyle helped him inside and dropped him on the bed, walking away to shut the door before returning to 'help' Stan out of his jeans. He undid the belt-buckle. Stan's mind instantly flashed to four weeks ago, and felt the blood leaving his head again._ Shit, shit, shit._

"N-no," he protested as Kyle's finger grazed his skin whilst unbuttoning his jeans. "K-Kyle, no, don't, ngh—s-stop—Kyle, STOP."

Kyle stopped.

Stan was shaking on his bed. With great effort, he propped himself up on his elbows and came to a sit. Kyle was kneeling in front of him, his hands on Stan's thighs, looking at him, a deadly kind of neutrality overshadowing the wild number of emotions he was trying to hide.

"Just trying to get you into your pajamas, Stan," he said simply.

"You can't... you just," Stan stumbled. "Just d-don't touch me, Ky..."

Boy, did that come out wrong. Kyle's eyes went dark with anger the same way they had the last time they'd been this close.

"Sorry, I forgot you're a homophobe," he snapped, sarcasm and hurt dripping from his words. He started to get up to leave. Thinking quickly, for once, Stan grabbed for his hand, and he stopped. He pulled Kyle back down, pushing his open palm on the hardened bulge under his unbuttoned but not unzipped jeans. They stared at each other, Stan's eyes dark with determination.

"That's what happens when you touch me."

Neither of them would be the first to look away, as both of them, chests heaving, felt a pulse of electricity cross the air. Stan, however, could only stand so much of Kyle's hand on his dick without going completely insane to let them stay that way for much longer, and he pushed him away, turning around on the bed so that he was lying on his stomach before he crawled up to the pillows.

"You have no idea," he panted out, head half-buried in the pillow, "how sorry I am, Kyle. No idea. And I can't show you. Cause it's not something you can see. It's not something I can, you know... physicalize. At least, not any better than I just did," he half-joked, stifling a chuckle. "But it's not just about that, you know. It's not, it's just... sometimes... sometimes, I can't believe how stupid I am. And all my ideas for making up for being stupid are even stupider."

Kyle hadn't moved as Stan rambled on, looking at him intently as he sat back up, crawling under his bed without removing a single article of clothing; not even his coat. He just couldn't do it, and he couldn't let Kyle do it. No more touching. Too much touching. Not enough, and too much.

"I can't find a way to show you how sorry I am," he concluded, resigned. He felt the side of the pillow he was laying on get wet and realized he was crying again. _Fucking shit,_ he was always crying. Might as well admit he was gay if not for anything else, right? He'd never cried over anyone else, other than Wendy, and that was way when they were young. Kyle had him crying around the clock, the bastard. He didn't even bother to wipe his face, however. Might as well be dignified about it, right?

"Well," Kyle sighed, standing up from his kneeling position and putting his hands in his coat pockets. He was nervous. He could tell. Stan looked up at him, waiting. "You better figure one out, Stan."

He walked over to the desk and brought the small garbage can next to the bed. He took a water bottle out of the bottom drawer of the nightstand and put it on top, cracking it open and closing it so he wouldn't have to struggle should he need it. Opening the top drawer, he took out the bottle of Advil, taking two out and putting them next to the water before closing it off and putting it back. He paused.

"And... and, figure it out soon. Please," he said, his eyes glued on the water bottle and pills, refusing to look at Stan. He straightened up, looking out the window at the falling snow. "'Cause, I don't think I can take this anymore."

And, still without looking at him, he turned around and walked out the door, closing it gently behind him.

"Me neither."


	8. Fucked

**A/N: I normally don't do Author's Notes, but I just wanted to apologize for taking so long in updating. Combination of writer's block and a huge transition in my life has put this on the back-burner. Updates may take longer from now on. Sorry. I will finish the story, though.**

**Saturday, April 3rd.**

**

* * *

**

The blaring sound of his phone's alarm clock would have woken him up if Stan had gotten to fall asleep at all that night. He looked at his cell, the light blinking 6am at him. Why the fuck he had set his alarm for 6am on a Saturday was the least of his questions. Why the fuck he'd gotten drunk and thought it was a good idea to fuck his best friend, now, _that_ was the question, Hamlet.

He rolled over in his bed and looked out the window, the slightest touch of light creeping into the darkness of the sky outside. He shut his eyes tight, not wanting the day to come. But moments that made him wish time would stop only seemed to speed it up further. His mind flashed back to a few hours earlier; his hand on Kyle's legs, the expression on his best friend's face, the feel of being inside him... It was too much. Too much, too much, _too much_.

He let out an audible, tortured groan into his pillow as he punched the headboard, vaguely hoping his parents had heard nothing. What the fuck had they done and why the fuck had they done it? He reached into his nightstand and grabbed the bottle of Advil, popping four into his mouth to dull the headache that had started to silently rumble in the background and the painful realization that he was going to break someone's heart. He just hadn't decided whose yet.

His thoughts strayed to Wendy. Wendy, with her beautiful, long, black hair and her pretty smile. Wendy, the girl he had known so well for a decade, the girl who had been on and off his girlfriend since he could remember, on-top of him since they first had sex two years ago. He chuckled for a half-second at the thought that he'd broken his promise to Chef to wait until seventeen. Oh well, one year earlier didn't make too much a difference, right?

He remembered that night. He was so nervous, he almost threw up on her various times, but somehow miraculously managed to hold it in. She had come into his room a few hours after one of their first really big fights and kissed him different than she ever had before. Having been a sixteen year old boy at the time, he was in no position to refuse. It was... nice. A little clumsy, and, expectedly, didn't last very long. He got better at it over the years, and considered himself pretty good in bed by now, given that he was as sexually driven as any other non-virgin eighteen year old. Sex was great. Sex was awesome, actually. He just didn't think it could have ever been so utterly mind-blowing. Especially not when it was with another dude. A fucking dude. A guy. He wasn't gay. He wasn't. He had always been into girls. He didn't like penis. So then what the fuck—?

What the fuck.

He looked back at his phone, re-reading Kyle's text from earlier that night. Or morning, depending on how he looked at it. Not that it mattered. '_Didn't get caught :)' _ Fucking smiley face. He could just imagine the smile on Kyle's face when he sent that. That stupid, gorgeous smile that had always made him happy to see it. Wendy's smile was pretty, but it was nothing like Kyle's. No one made him feel better like Kyle did. He just never realized it for what it was.

Kyle, of course, he had always suspected wasn't a tits man so much as a dick man. They'd never really talked about his sexuality so much as alluded to it. Kyle had made out with girls at parties, but always came back to Stan complaining about how boring it had been or the stupid, drunken things they'd said. Stan remembered that time they had built a club house, how hard-up Bebe had been on Kyle and how oblivious the eight-year-old redhead had been about it all. Girls were gross to him then, and apparently were still gross to him now. Knowing what he knew now about Kyle, it was a wonder he didn't see it coming. He remembered the first night they had all gotten drunk together, before Kenny and Butters had become a thing, and he'd watched, inexplicably enraged, as Kenny and Kyle made out in front of him. It was only a dare, and lasted all but thirty seconds; about thirty-five too long for Stan to approve. He'd made jokes afterwards and tried to take it in stride, but the image annoyed him to no end.

In the back of his mind, he'd often imagined that maybe Kyle had feelings for him, but he wrote those thoughts off as hypothetical and let them be only fleeting. But he felt it last night for sure. Kyle was in love with him. The thought made him sickeningly excited. What was he going to do? What was he going to say? What could he possibly say to make any of this better? Someone was going to get their heart broken. Wendy or Kyle, and definitively himself, someone was going to come out of this royal fuck-up royally fucked.

His mind flashed back again to the taste of Kyle's lips, the sound of his voice calling out his name over and over again, and felt his blood rushing to the last place he wanted it to go. Fuck his life. He wasn't gay. He wasn't.

He blamed Kyle.

This was all Kyle's fault.

Kyle, with his vulnerability and his innocent, Kyle-smile, with his Kyle face and his Kyle smell and his Kyle... Kyle-ness. Fucking Kyle. _Fuck you, Kyle._ Another part of him cynically sniped back _'already did'_ and he threw the first thing he grabbed, his pillow, at the wall. It wasn't enough. He grabbed for the Advil bottle, the trinkets on his nightstand, half of which were gifts from said fucking seductor Kyle Broflovski, and the lamp. It shattered, and he heard stirring in his parents room. He'd woken them up. He scrambled to hide the broken glass, managing to do so and jump back in his bed to feign slumber just in time for his mom to peek inside his room.

"Stan?" she called softly. He stayed still, shifting a little only to help the illusion, until he heard her shut the door. He crawled out of bed and started picking up the broken pieces as quietly as he could. He would have to vacuum later.

Someone's heart was going to get broken. And he wasn't going to be able to just pick up the pieces and replace it like he would his lamp.

He walked over to his desk. Looking through pictures, he found one of him and Wendy, her arms around his neck, looking very couple-y. He was never one to cheat. How could he betray her like this? Just because he was suspicious of her possible relations with Cartman didn't give him the right to...

Flashes of Kyle's sweat covered body as he rode him burned through his mind. He pushed his fist against his brow, punching down on the desk in an effort to make the images stop and control the direction of his blood. He was getting flustered. He found a picture of just Kyle, just smiling, beautiful Kyle, looking off into the horizon. It was his favorite picture of his friend, and he couldn't help but smile at it back.

He couldn't break Kyle's heart. He just couldn't. He had to, and he couldn't. He wasn't going to leave Wendy. He couldn't leave Wendy. Not for a guy. He wasn't into guys. He wasn't gay. He _wasn't gay_.

He couldn't take it anymore. He had to talk to him and explain. What he was going to explain, he had no idea. Still, he picked up his phone and pressed speed-dial #2. What was he doing? Why was he calling him? Why the fuck was he _calling_ him?

"_Hey, you've reached Kyle's phone, sorry I didn't answer, but leave a message and I'll call back as soon as I can."_

_He must be sleeping_.

He tried to be thankful that Kyle hadn't answered, but found himself torn between relief and aggravation. He looked back at the pictures, taking them both to his bed with him. The sky was getting lighter. Crawling back under the sheets and closing his eyes, he tried to think about Wendy. Wendy, his girlfriend. Wendy, his _girl_friend. Wendy, who he was _attracted_ to, right? He started to rub himself through his clothing, trying to turn himself on at the thought of she who should be able to; but it wasn't working. He looked at the picture, and the one of Kyle fell out from behind it. Suddenly, getting turned on was made much, much easier. He groaned in frustration, tossing the pictures to the side. This couldn't be happening.

That day and Sunday went by in a haze of dazed emotion, repeating the same things he'd been doing in the wake of his post-coidal affair with Kyle. The thought that he was going to have to break either his girlfriend's or his best friend's heart was sinking Stan into a funked depression, and he ignored everyone's calls, including Kyle's, who had called and texted him twice. He just couldn't handle talking to him. He hadn't left his room the entire weekend, except to go to the kitchen and the bathroom, and was dreading tomorrow morning like a man headed for the gallows. It was almost midnight, which left him with only seven hours before he had to face Kyle and Wendy.

He felt like he was going insane.

This couldn't be happening. This wasn't supposed to be happening. He was supposed to be straight. He had _always _been _straight_. It's not that he believed being gay was wrong, he knew that much deep down. But as for himself? He couldn't stomach the thought of he himself being _gay. _It just wasn't supposed to be that way. He was... he wasn't—

Suddenly, his phone went off, scaring what little sleepiness had managed to come to him over the past two nights right out of him. He turned over in his bed and picked it up, looking at the screen. It was Kyle. He told himself not to pick it up, but something inside him decided to flip it open.

"Yeah?" He hadn't meant to sound so... bitchy.

"Uh, hey," he heard Kyle's voice say, immediately hurt by Stan's tone of voice on top of having been ignored for two days.

"What's up." Again, he didn't understand his curtness. He had no right to be angry at Kyle. Being honest with himself, everything that happened had been initiated by him. But being honest with himself was too much to handle right now, so he had to settle for misdirected, unfair anger aimed at his best friend.

"Just, uh," he could've sworn he heard him gulp. "Just wanted to see if you... are you okay? Haven't heard from you since—"

"Yeah, just busy, that's all," he cut him off, not needing Kyle to say out loud what he was finding impossible to forget. "Look, I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

"Stan..."

"Kyle, please," he cut him off again, a pleading tone behind his irateness. "Just... I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Kyle stayed silent on the other line before muttering a resigned "okay." Stan hung up the phone as quickly as he could. There were a lot of things he was confused about, too many, in fact... But only one he was sure of: he wasn't ready for this. He didn't want to be, or couldn't accept, being gay. Not for anyone. Not even for Kyle. Not right now. He didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow, but he could only suspect one thing: he was going to break his best friend's heart.

But he had no idea that, in doing so, he would end up breaking his own.


	9. Sober

**Present Day.**

**After the party.**

* * *

Stanley Marsh had never had such a raging hangover in his life.

And that was a lot to say, since, at eighteen, he'd had his fair share of them already.

He opened his eyes to a pulsating room hours earlier than he would have liked, but that always seemed to happen when he'd been drinking. He sat up in his bed and was met with a rushing case of the spins, forcing him to lie back down to prevent a projectile vomiting incident, and groaned. Looking over at his nightstand, he saw the readied bottle of water and Advil that had been put out for him.

Kyle.

His brain furiously worked to remember everything it could about the night before. He'd never been one to forget things after drinking, which made recalling the details of the party easier than most people would have found it. He thought about how Kyle had come to their rescue, despite the fact that he was certain he'd ruined things between them both. Kyle had come to get him. Kyle had taken care of him. Kyle had gotten him hard just trying to change him into his pajamas. Kyle had put out a bottle of water and Advil for him, which he was now taking to fervently. Even when hurt and slighted, Kyle was still unabashedly considerate and caring. That was just... Kyle.

God, he missed Kyle.

He got up from his bed and walked out of his room to the bathroom, laying himself down on the cold tiles to alleviate the expanding pounding of his brain, which he could have sworn was coming out of his ears. He felt himself wretch, and wrenched himself up to the toilet seat, closing the door of the bathroom with his foot so his sister and his parents wouldn't hear him throw up.

_I'm never drinking again._

And, just a moment later:

_That's a lie. _

He sniggered at himself cynically.

_That's a bigger lie than you telling Kyle that night meant nothing to you._

Guilt rang inside his heart like the feeble, melancholy sound of an old bell whose time being tolled was nearly over. He reached for some toilet paper and wiped his mouth clean, flushing the toilet and pulling himself from the edge of the sink. He looked in the mirror. Good God, he looked a hot ass mess. Like he'd just been hit by a truck. It was certainly how he felt. Now would be a good time for the Advil he'd taken to have had a side of codeine. Or was that Tylenol? He couldn't remember.

_God, shut up, Stan. Just shut up._

He turned the cold water handle open and splashed some on his face, cupping his hands to fill them so he could drink. Taking a deep breath, he looked at himself again, drips of water falling down his forehead, nose, chin, cheeks. He plugged up the sink and filled it to the top with water, staring at himself intently until it was full, when he turned shut the tap and dunked his head in the pool before him. He stayed there as long as he could, counting forty seven seconds before his lungs started to burn. Heshot back up, soaked, his hair dripping. He made no grab for the towel as he unplugged the sink, turned off the bathroom light and walked back to his quarters.

The sky was growing pink.

In the sobering light of day, he could no longer remember his reasoning behind keeping Kyle at bay. Sometimes, he just didn't understand the stupid shit he did. He imagined standing up in front of the whole cafeteria and declaring his love for Kyle. Love? What the fuck, did he just think love? His... his whatever for Kyle. The thought made him wildly uncomfortable. He couldn't do that. Him and Kyle, a couple? Why did he want this? Why did he _not_ want this? Why couldn't he fucking make up his fucking stupid fucking mind?

It was simple. He was still struggling with the idea of being... gay. Coming out to his parents... coming out? Coming out of where? He'd never been in a damn closet, he liked girls! But never felt about any girl the way he did about Kyle. No one made him feel so... happy.

Guess he was gay, then.

Shit.

Shit shit fuck shit fucking balls shit.

He shook his head, crawling back under the covers after having been standing idly in the middle of his room. His parents... his mom might not care, but his dad? That would be quite the conversation. _Hey, Dad, you know Kyle? I'm in love with him_. He snorted, imagining his father's passive aggressive response and the fracture in their already tense relationship it would create. Kyle's mom was an even bigger problem. She'd blame Stan for everything, for corrupting and fucking her bubby, and proceed in forbidding them to see each other again. Like she could stop them. No, the real obstacle was his lifelong images of a wife and kids, a girl in a pretty white dress that he'd kiss. That ideal was fading fast, and he struggled to imagine Kyle in a suit next to him instead. His mouth tore itself in half trying to frown and smile at the same time. He'd never imagined... that. Not for him. Not in his life.

But then, a life without Kyle...

_Fuck that._

He'd have to try and convince himself that it wasn't about being gay, it was about... being with Kyle... He had to make things right. He just didn't know how. All he knew was that he wanted Kyle. Whether that made him gay or not, he would deal with later.

He fell back asleep for most of the day, waking up after night had fallen. Kenny had sent him a text: '_hungover? :P,' _and another saying:_ 'so what happened?'_ Butters simply had asked '_howre you feelin? :('_ He opened his phone and replied to both of them: '_I'm fine,' _and briefly wondered why Kyle hadn't sent him anything, reminding himself of the horrible pain he'd unleashed upon him not a month ago.

He had to make things right.

* * *

He walked into school that Monday nervous as hell, but even more determined. They were officially a little less than three weeks away from graduation. Finals were next week, and he probably should have been holed up at the library, studying like a madman like everyone else. But tests were the last thing on his mind. AP's, finals, then prom... then the end... and he had yet to even catch a glimpse of his favorite head of fiery red hair under that oh-so-familiar hat. Time was running out.

At 11:13 am he walked into AP English. His breath caught. There he was, sitting with his head in a pile of books, scribbling away on index cards and notebook paper, his brow furrowed even tighter than normal. Boy, was Stan's heart getting quite the workout lately. He took a deep breath, and made for the empty seat next to him before a flash of blonde dashed in front of him. Butters had cut him off fast-paced and briskly stole the spot next to Kyle. Stan, at first shocked and blindsided, felt his feet root into the ground with a kind of betrayed anger. _What the fuck was that for?_ Butters looked at him with a sheepish, awkwardly apologetic expression on his face and glanced over at Kyle, seemingly making sure he wasn't looking at them before lifting a carefully folded piece of paper for Stan to see. Once he was satisfied that Stan had understood it was meant for him, he glanced at Kyle again, focused as ever on whatever he was focusing on, and tossed the paper to the floor, a few feet away from them.

Stan, still hurt and glaring, stalked off to get the paper and took the seat a row up and two seats over. He sat down. Butters had better have a good reason for that little stunt he just pulled.

"Okay, class—" in came sweeping Mrs. Garino. Stan put the note out of sight for the time being. "As you all know, or should by now, the AP is a week from tomorrow, so, I'm going to write up a couple study topics that might help you prepare and let you review on your own. If you have any questions, just come up to the front. Study buddies confer quietly with each other, please."

Stan glanced back at Kyle, who was halfway putting his head down from looking at Mrs. Garino. Damn. He almost caught his gaze. He looked at Butters, who waved softly at him and offered a comforting smile. He turned his attention to the note, which was sealed with a Hello Kitty sticker.

'_Stanie,_

_Kyle called me last night and asked me to keep you away from him. he didn't really explain why, except that he really needed me to do it, so, I felt like I had to be there for him... please don't be mad :( did something new happen w/ you guys? what happened after I went to Ken's?_

_B'_

He fished his notebook out of his backpack and tore off a corner of paper from it, then scribbled _'I don't wanna talk about it right now. I'll tell you later. did he say anything else?' _and crumpled it before inconspicuously tossing in Butters' direction. It hit Clyde in the head, who looked up at Stan with a 'what the fuck?' expression on his face. Stan motioned and mouthed for him to give that to Butters. Though annoyed and reluctant, he did so before rolling his eyes at Stan and returning to his doodles. Stan watched Butters open the paper, read it, and begin a response. His eyes strayed to Kyle. Soon enough, a piece of paper hit him on the temple, and he heard Butters stifle a giggle. He reached down and picked it up, glancing at the teacher's desk to make sure she hadn't caught on before opening it.

'_not really :( he just said that he needed to focus and he couldn't really handle talking to you, but he had a feeling you might try, and that was it. lemme know when you wanna talk, k?' _

He looked back at Butters and nodded, and the small blonde smiled at him before returning to his studies. His attentions turned back to Kyle. He watched him, the light of mid-morning lighting up his face through the open blinds of the window. He had a pencil in his lips, and Stan had never been so jealous of an inanimate object in his life. He watched him chew on it a little before taking it out to write something down. Gaze unfaltering, he watched him. He watched him scratch his ear, he watched him flip through his books, rub his neck, and occasionally whisper something between himself and Butters about their work. He had to remind himself that Butters had no interest in Kyle to stifle his jealousy to a silent grumble. After a little while, he watched Kyle stop to look out the window for about a minute before turning back to his studies again. He looked so damn beautiful.

"Mr. Marsh, kindly switch your focus from what Mr. Broflovski is doing to what you should be."

Mrs. Garino's remark broke through the silence, and Kyle looked first in the direction of her voice and then at Stan. He must have been blushing, but he wasn't concerned with that so much as the fact that Kyle had finally looked at him. He muttered some form of an 'um,' his eyes on Kyle the whole time, even after he had looked back down at his work to avoid him, his expression indecipherable. Their teacher's voice came back at him.

"Stanley Marsh, what did I just say?"

He turned away, ignoring the sniggering and tutting coming from the rest of the classmates. He heard someone mutter '_fags'_ in the background, and clenched his fist to control himself again.

"Sorry," he muttered, subtly yet severely insincerely. For the rest of the class, he would glance back at Kyle from time to time, trying to think of the best way to talk to him. When the bell rang he got up with all intention to walk over to his desk, but Butters was too quick for him. He stopped Stan in his tracks and put a hand on his chest, firmly as he could, and Stan had to watch Kyle grab his books in a messy heap and slip out of the room.

"Stan," Butters said very seriously, waiting as the rest of the students filtered out. "Stan, look, I know this isn't what you wanna hear right now, but, you need to leave him alone. At least for the next week."

"Why," he tested, frustrated that the world seemed to be telling him two things at once: make things right, don't make them right, fix it, back off, go to him, leave him alone; what the fucking Christ did he have to do? "What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything," Butters explained. "Other than reiterating what he asked me last night. This is me talking. This is what I'm saying, okay? You know Kyle. Better than all of us. So... so, you know how stressed he gets with tests coming." Stan looked back out the door and Butters walked around him so he was facing him again. "He's got six AP's to take, and he doesn't really need you trying to—"

"Goddammit, Butters, I just wanna talk to him for a second!"

"Would you two please clear out of here?" Mrs. Garino demanded, annoyed. She pointed at the door. "Discuss your social life at lunch."

"Yes, Mrs. Garino, sorry!" Butters jumped, grabbing his backpack and motioning Stan to follow him. As they made their way into the halls and towards the lockers, they tried to keep their conversation as incognito as possible. "Look, Stan," he continued, opening his locker when they reached it. "No offense, but... he took a big step when he picked you up from Bebe's. I don't think he can handle much more than that right now. Not with all these tests coming up anyway... I mean... the things you did... you really, really hurt him, Stanie."

"Thanks, 'cause I needed the reminder," Stan sniped back, sarcastic and getting angrier with each passing word.

"I'm just being honest," he sighed, putting the last of his books in his locker neatly and closing it. "Just... just give him some space right now. If you really—"

"No, I _need_ to talk to him _now_," Stan told him simply. He walked away, ignoring the sound of his friend's voice calling him back, and headed towards the library, where he knew Kyle would be. He was determined to make this right, and devil may care about the warnings he'd just gotten that the time wasn't right for it. He ignored the subtle gut feeling to turn around. He knew deep down he should hold off, but Stan was never one to be patient, and always the first to stay stubborn. He turned the corner and entered the small library, searching through the tables and chairs before he found Kyle at one near the back. He pulled out the chair in front of him, dropped his backpack, and sat down.

"I need to talk to you."

Kyle looked up at him. There were slight hints of dark circles under his eyes, tiredness evident, stress lifting his shoulders slightly off their normally relaxed position. He looked at Stan for about three seconds before he shook his head and went back to his book.

"Not now, Stan."

"You need to eat something."

"I will," he sighed, still working. "I have a sandwich in my bag."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Liar."

Kyle sighed audibly and reached into his backpack, pulling out an odd looking sub wrapped in ceran, smelling oddly of gefilte. He tossed it back in the bag. "I really need to study, so, please go."

"No, I need to talk to you—"

"Stan—"

"Just give me five fucking minutes," he pleaded, looking at him. Kyle looked up again, a pained expression in his eyes. He rolled his eyes and started to get up. Stan grabbed Kyle's hand and pulled him out of his seat the rest of the way to take him behind the row of books, where they'd be out of sight.

"Well?"

Suddenly, Stan didn't know what to say. He opened his mouth to start talking and looked a little like a fish out of water.

"Stan, WHAT? Come on, please, I have to keep—"

He grabbed him by the forearms and pulled him to him, pushing their lips together. It was the first time he'd kissed him since the night he'd ruined everything, and he felt himself immediately getting lost in it... his taste, his smell, the feel of his lips... He'd never wanted anyone more. It scared the living shit out of him, but he chose this time to push past that. He brought his hand to the other's hair, tangling in it, and heard Kyle suck in a substantial amount of air through his nose, sinking into the kiss for the all but seven seconds it would last. Stan could have sworn he'd started kissing him back before he was pushed away.

"Stop, please—" he implored, out of breath and adorably flushed.

"Kyle, I'm sorry—"

"Not now, Stan, goddammit." He looked like he was on the verge of tears. "I can't—I can't do this right now. I have AP English in a week—"

"From tomorrow—"

"—and Euro is in three days, Calc is the next day, Physics is right after English, then US History, then Spanish, I just CAN'T DO THIS RIGHT NOW."

"Goddammit, Kyle," he said through gritted teeth. He leaned in closer and took a deep breath, putting a hand on his shoulder. Kyle half-heartedly shrugged it off, and Stan backed off a pace, looking off to the side. "You tell me to make things right, and, here I am, trying to do just that, and—"

"Look, I get what you're trying to do, but I have other things taking priority right now—"

"Priority?" he snapped back, extremely hurt that he apparently wasn't one of them. He wasn't thinking straight. He figured making things better would make everything better, wouldn't it? So why wasn't it a priority? Why wasn't _he_ a priority? "What the fuck, Kyle? Since when is our... our f-friendship—since when are we—what, am I not important to you anym—?"

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" he said firmly, loudly, desperately. It was probably best that no one else was in the library at the time, at least not in that section. "Goddamit, Stan, you're so fucking selfish! Always you, you, you! Do you not see me cracking up right now? Do you not see how fucking stressed I am! I can't do this with you! Not now! Leave me alone! Please!"

Stan let himself be pushed away that time, and he watched Kyle go back to sit in his seat. He felt even worse than he had before. Butters and his gut had both been right. He needed to leave Kyle alone right now. As badly as he wanted to make things right, Kyle's needs, for once, had to come first.

He walked out from behind the shelves, slowly approaching the table where Kyle was. He paused next to him briefly to tell him:

"If you need, you know... anything—someone to write out flashcards or whatever... I'm—I'm here."

Kyle said nothing, and Stan walked out of the library, resigned to force himself to keep his distance so long as he needed him to. He hated himself for being selfish. The best thing he could do right now was do nothing, as unbearable as that thought was. Maybe the silence would give him enough time to figure out what it was that he really needed to say to make things better.


	10. Run

**Monday, April 5th.**

**

* * *

**

It was like walking into a nightmare.

Every single one of his footsteps seemed to hit the rubbery tiling of the school hallway with such force and noise, it made him feel like the villain in a movie, coming to kill its hero, and he glanced around nervously, sure that everyone around him had been as startled by his entrance as he was. He heard his heartbeat pounding over the sound of the hundred and one conversations around him. He felt like he was radiating heat; like any minute now, someone was going to come up to him and say, 'yo, Stan, you okay? I can feel your fever from the counselor's office.' He felt like he was going to kill someone, and no one knew it but him.

The latter thought was more true than he wanted it to be.

He opened his locker with visibly shaking hands and stalled his movements, not needing anyone to look at his state of being and start asking questions. He ran it again through his mind — the long, convoluted why as to why he was going to break Kyle's heart. _Kyle, listen... we both had a lot to drink, and we weren't in our right mind. I'm sorry if I led you on, but, that can't happen again. I hope we can move past this. You're my best friend, and I don't want to lose you._

God, it sounded fucking stupid in his head. How fucking stupider was it going to sound coming out of his mouth?

What was he worrying about anyway? Kyle had been drunk too, right? Maybe he was in the clear. Maybe he wanted to forget it as much as he did.

_"Stan—fuck, Stan."_

_"Fucking shit, you feel amazing."_

Not a chance. And he was having a bitch of a time making _himself_ want to forget it.

"Hey."

He almost jumped at the sound of Kyle's voice, but managed to keep steady, eyes darting from his books in his backpack to the shelf of his locker, keeping up the process of taking some out and putting some in. He couldn't look at him, and he couldn't not look at him. His peripheral vision was taking the brunt of the conflict.

"Hey."

"So..." Kyle mumbled, leaning against the adjacent locker. "Uh, hey."

"Hey."

If Stan had been looking, he would have seen Kyle frown. "You... alright?"

"I'm fine," he said simply, clenching himself mentally to stop the violent shaking his insides seemed to be doing. He kept trying to say 'I need to talk to you,' or something of the sort, so he could finally spill out his rehearsed speech... but a very cowardly, very selfish part of him was rearing its ugly, ugly head; borne of his panicked denial and something else entirely. Something like a jealous, possessive something. "Why?"

Kyle looked at him, bemused. He lowered his voice. "Don't be stupid, you know _why._"

Stan sighed, the focus on the corner of his eye giving him a headache, and he stalled his book extraction distraction to finally look at Kyle.

Oh, godfuckingdammit, he was so...

_FUCK FUCK FUCK._

"Look, Kyle—"

"Hey, you," a sweet voice said as someone wrapped her arms around his neck from behind. He felt a pair of soft lips kiss him on the neck as he was spun around to meet face to face with his girlfriend.

_Fuck my life._

"Hey, Wends," he said as cooly as he could, kissing her hello, the blandness of which startled him, and wishing he had eyes on the back of his head so he could gauge the expression on Kyle's face... not that he needed to. He could imagine it quite clearly. Hurt, shocked, and steady. His selfish self smirked at the thought of Kyle's jealousy, which tore him in half as it instantly made him feel even worse for even thinking of smirking, inwardly or otherwise... He put his arms around Wendy's waist and kissed her again, selfish-Stan wanting to drive the point home without having to actually tell Kyle what choice he'd apparently already made. But, for the first time in his life, his lips on Wendy's felt wholly... unnatural. Wrong. Fake.

"Hey, Kyle," she greeted him, letting go of Stan's neck but grabbing his hand as the black haired teen closed his locker and zipped up his backpack, both out of necessity and to just have something to do. "You ready for AP's?"

Kyle stared at them both, his expression becoming rapidly unreadable as he scrambled to hide all emotion and act like nothing was wrong. Stan, always able to read Kyle like a book, picked up on it and felt half like the smallest man on Earth, half like a smugly satisfied asshole. "I started studying."

"Wow, he's even more ambitious than me," she remarked, glancing off to the side and looking lost in thought for a half second before she pulled Stan close again. "AP's are still a month away, you know," she joked.

"Yeah, well, " he almost smirked. Stan could see the pain in his eyes growing every second. Why the fuck was he getting any kind of rush out of this? He'd been dreading hurting Kyle all weekend, and now, he was... happy about it? No, he wasn't happy about it... He sure as hell wasn't as apologetic and upset as he should have been, though, that was for sure. "Guess I'm just a fuckin' idiot."

Stan's heart sank faster and more disastrously than the fucking Titanic. He locked eyes with Kyle, and the world around him seemed to disappear in the most wonderfully awful way. Wendy, however, merely blinked at him, the meaning behind his words completely lost on her. She looked at him quizzically before shrugging it off and looking around the hallway, "Stan, let's go, we're gonna be late for homeroom," she said, tugging her boyfriend's arm.

"Yeah, okay."

"See you in there, Kyle!"

Kyle smiled at them, a hint of dangerous anger in his eyes as he watched Stan turn around.

"Well, that was weird," he barely heard her say, feeling himself glued; unable to look away from Kyle's receding face but forced to do so by the hand of his choice, who pulled him in for another kiss as they passed Eric Cartman rounding the corner. He pulled away from her lips just in time to get one last look back at he who would soon be his ex-best friend. "What's with him?"

It took him all his energy to make his "Dunno" lie convincing.

* * *

The rest of the day had been an awkward dance of avoidance for Stan, who shared a couple classes with the redhead his mind and heart were obsessing over. He sat far away from him, avoided him in the halls by dashing out of class the minute the bell rang, and sat with Wendy and her friends all through lunch—something he always _hated_ doing. He feared constantly that someone would pick up on his erratic behavior and figure everything out in time to grab a megaphone and announce to the whole school: 'Stan and Kyle fucked! And now Stan can't make up his mind! Wendy or Kyle, Stan? Make your choice, you fag!'

For some reason, he imagined Craig's voice dispatching.

By the end of the day, he was thoroughly exhausted, praying he'd be able to keep it up, and watching every clock he encountered, willing them to go faster. When the current one he was looking at hit 4:00, he bolted out of his last class to his locker, scrambling furiously to switch his books for the ones he would need tonight and get out of there before Kyle had a chance to corner him.

Success.

He bumped into Wendy again just as he got to the exit doors, and she asked him to come to her house later. He agreed, trying to mask the reluctance in his voice by kissing her again. Unnatural. Lackluster. Wrong.

Fake.

He shook it off. It must have just been the proximity to—

_"Stan, what—"_

_"Stop asking, goddammit."_

_His hands pressing; moving. The sweat on Kyle's forehead as he took of his hat. The feel of his soft curls through his fingers. The look on Kyle's face as his eyes fluttered shut with a smile._

He might have scared a couple people with the grunt and force with which he opened the doors, the cold air hitting his face as he stormed off in the direction of his car. He couldn't have cared less. His feet crunched angrily through the snow as he pulled out his keys from his pocket.

"Jesus Christ, could you get away any faster?"

_Fuck_.

"Apparently, not fast enough," he mumbled, turning the key and opening the car door.

"Stan."

He tossed his backpack into the passengers seat and climbed in.

"Stan."

He closed the door.

"Stan," Kyle pressed on, though his pleas went unheard as he started up the engine, drowning out the sound of his voice. Kyle's gloved fingers resting on the window, he could see him saying his name. For a brief second, he looked straight at Kyle, and felt terrified: terrified that he could see on his face everything he was thinking. Terrified that he'd never felt so confused in his life, yet the only answer he could think of was crystal clear, standing in front of him as plain as the green hat on the answer's head. Terrified the only thing he wanted to do was tell Kyle to get into the car so they could go back to somewhere and—and...

_No. _

He put the car in reverse.

"Stan!"

_No, dammit. _

He broke their gaze to look back through the rear of the car, watching through the corner of his eye as Kyle's fingers slipped off the window as he drove away. He bounced a little on the curb as his feelings got the best of him.

_This can't happen._

He felt angry, angry tears prickle even more angrily at the corners of his eyes, and paused for the longest of half-seconds to look at Kyle, standing awfully still right where he'd left him.

_Please. Don't let this be happening._

And, going against every feeling coursing through him, in direct defiance of what his heart and his gut were trying to tell him, he switched the gear to drive and drove away.

_I won't let this happen._


	11. Prom

**Present Day**

* * *

They were the longest three weeks in his life.

No, really. The longest. Fucking. Three weeks. Of his LIFE.

Three weeks—well, really about two and a half weeks... whatever—THREE WEEKS of forcing himself to study for finals and Advanced Placement exams, which seemed to him the least important thing in the world at the time. Three weeks of cramming information in his head which battled constantly with the stream of unorganized thoughts and ideas for getting Kyle to forgive him. Three weeks of trying, trying, trying so hard to make himself resist his overwhelming need to talk to him. Three weeks at the end of which: he had no leads on how to do right by his best friend, he knew even less about the French Revolution than before his cramming sessions, and he might as well never have read _The Picture of Dorian Gray—_even though he had—because staring at the back of Kyle's head during the test made every bit of plot from the twice-read book fly out the back of his head faster than his inhibitions had on what was now rapidly coming to be remembered by himself as the happiest, most exhilarating, most terrifying night of his life.

It had been a fucking nightmare of a week, three times over.

And now? Now that the three weeks were over, he still had no idea what he was going to say to Kyle when he saw him again. Even worse, the next time he saw him, they would both be in tuxedos, walking into the South Park High gym for that most deplorable and ungodly of nights: the Senior Prom.

He looked at himself in the mirror and let out a soft sigh.

His tie was askew.

He'd tried to corner Kyle after his last final, but the look of absolute exhaustion on the other's face when he came out of the AP Spanish exam was heartbreaking, and he ducked around the corner to let Kyle go home and rest without any more stress on his shoulders. He wasn't sure at all that he'd done the right thing, but ignoring his gut had gotten him nowhere these past two months. He might as well try some different tactics.

Hah, tactics. Like it was some sort of war they were fighting. _Guess that's where that 'love and war, all's fair, blah blah whatever it is' quote comes from._ To him, both concepts connotated the same level of horror; both just as bloody, painful, and costly.

Fucking war.

_No, screw that. Fucking love. Fuck love._

He'd take Iraq over heartbreak any day.

Love makes you such a fucking drama queen, doesn't it?

So, here he was: Stan Marsh, age eighteen, six feet and one-half inches tall, jet black hair hanging loosely just over his strong eyebrows; a five-o-clock shadow of scruff he was refusing to shave off in 'honor' of this preposterously overhyped evening highlighting his brilliant blue eyes as he stared at himself in the mirror of his bathroom. He wore a classic black tuxedo, sans bow, plus newly-adjusted tie, and any girl in South Park would have considered herself oh-so-lucky to have had him waiting downstairs for her tonight.

He had always imagined a small box with a flower waiting to be put on Wendy's wrist later that night to be clutched in his hand, but the thought was such a distant memory of an old expectation that it seemed... beyond just foreign; like a weird dream he'd once had, of which he could only make out the faint mental imprint of a once very strong feeling. Things really do change, he supposed. Fast, too.

He heard his mother call from downstairs—something about 'Kenny and Butters are here!'—and looked at his watch. It was already almost ten. They were going to miss the whole prom, which, according to school regulations, ended at midnight. He suddenly let out a short laugh at how little he cared.

"Coming!"

He went back to his room and stuffed his cellphone, wallet, keys, and a hefty flask full of Jim Beam in individual pockets of his suit before walking downstairs to meet his friends. His mother was waiting on the landing, tears ready and waiting to spring out of her maternal eyes as she watched her baby come down for the most important dance of his young life. And they did—proud, melodramatic beads of mom-ness wetting the wrinkles around her eyes as she hugged her boy, who prayed, in turn, that she wouldn't feel the hard metal of the concealed alcohol in his breast pocket.

"Oh, my baby! You look so handsome!" she weeped, squeezing him tighter. Stan would have laughed had he had breath to laugh with. Or if he'd been in anything resembling a laughing mood.

"Okay—M-mom, you can—" he wheezed slightly, shooting a glare at the highly amused Kenny and Butters. "Air, I need air—"

"Sharon, honey, let him breathe," his father chimed in, gently pulling her back. She sniffled by her husband's side, who looked around the room at the three tuxedoed teenagers before him. "Looking sharp, boys! So, what, none of you could get dates?" He laughed awkwardly, trying to make his own joke funny by encouraging them to laugh with him. Didn't work. Randy cleared his throat, looking for conversation. "Always thought Stan would be on his way to pick up Wendy Testaburger around this time tonight—"

"Dad, shut the fuck up."

"Language, Stanley," his mom chimed in.

"I'm just saying," Randy Marsh defended, taking a sip from his beer. "Didn't have to be Wendy, that was just a joke... it was in poor taste, I'm sorry." Stan nodded in recognition of the apology and headed over to where Kenny and Butters were standing. "But, come on, three good looking guys such as yourselves? Must've been at least a couple girls at that school begging you'd ask them to be their date."

"Randy..."

"I'm just _saying_!" he insisted. Though none of his words were mean-spirited, Stan could smell the veiled disappointment in his father's words from miles away. "Kinda lame to go to prom alone, isn't it?"

He laughed again as he took another sip of his beer can. It was a joke, of course. Just a harmless joke at the expense of three young boys about to go to an importantly embarrassing social event. But Kenny, ever eager to tell the truth and, sub-sequentially, make people uncomfortable whenever possible, decided to do... well, exactly that.

"Butters has a date."

Randy turned to face them and give the smaller blond a hearty pat on the back. Butters coughed. "Now, that's how it's done, kiddo! Which girl? Who're you goin' with?"

Kenny smirked.

"I don't think I really qualify as a 'girl,' Mr. Marsh."

The silence that followed wasn't deadly, but it was sure as hell uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and awkward.

Except maybe for Kenny, who looked like he was having the time of his life as he laced his fingers in Butters', who looked petrified. Stan, who had controlled his sharp inhale down to a silent breath after his friend had spoken, had his nose pinched in between his thumb and forefinger.

"We should, uh, head out," he interjected, breaking the tension in the room as gracefully as a hammer breaks a mirror. His dad almost jumped at the sound of his voice. "Yep, let's go. Night, Mom."

"N-night!" she called out, stunned and embarrassed on behalf of her husband, as Stan exited the house, followed promptly by a widely grinning Kenny who confidently wrapped his arm around Butters' waist and lead him out the door into the cold.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Kenny led them all in a burst of laughter.

"Oh my fucking Christ, that was priceless!"

"Dude," Stan chided, trying to sound angry through his laughter but failing. "Dude, that's gonna be the most awkward conversation of my life when I get back, you know..." He chuckled, and stumbled a little on a rock on the ground, feeling the flask knock against his breast. "Speaking of awkward, whatd'ya say we make this stupid fucking thing we're walking to—" Stan reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his flask "—a little more bearable—" only to look up and see that Kenny was holding his out as well. They stared at each other for a half second and started laughing again.

"Jinx!" Butters said, jumping up slightly on his toes.

"You are so fucking cute," Kenny told him as he grabbed him by the waist pulled him into a kiss, opening the flask with his free hand. Stan did the same, minus the kiss, and wished he had Kyle next to him so they could out-cute them. Which they would have, he was sure.

_Wait, what?_

Out-_cute_ them? Since when did he want to—Jesus Christ—the fuck? Did he just.. think that?

Of course he did.

_I hate this_.

He took a swig as he watched Kenny shotgun half of a huge gulp directly into Butters' mouth. Stan—oh, poor, poor Stan—was getting hard just imagining doing the same thing to the red-haired beholder of his manic obsession. He grit his teeth, and forced himself to think about his dead Grandpa again.

_Jesus tap-dancing Christ, this sucks._

_"_Seriously, though," he said, clearing his throat and switching flasks with Kenny, who gave Stan's over to Butters. "My Dad's probably annoyed and disconcerted as hell right now—"

"Ah, what the fuck ever," Kenny said, waving his free hand in the air in his 'who cares' way. "Just tell him it's none of his business—"

"It's his business when you go off and make it his business—"

"Dude, chillax, it was fucking funny!"

"No, it's not fucking funny," Stan huffed, unable to stop thinking about what his father would say if he'd done that same exact thing with Kyle tonight instead. He could just imagine the look on Randy Marsh's face as his son told him he was going to his prom with another penis-bearing human being. It would ruin them, he was sure. So why was a huge part of him getting so excited at the very thought of that scenario? "My Dad isn't _that _comfortable with the whole gay thing—"

"Jeeze, Stanie, who cares?" Butters interrupted, taking another swig of the flask as they rounded the corner of the school gym before he closed it and handed it back to Stan. "Like your Dad is really going to be that concerned with the fact that Kenny and I are going to prom together? Stop projecting your fear of what your Dad is going to think of _you_ being gay onto every little situation that's remotely related."

Stan and Kenny both stopped walking.

The tall, dirty blond looked from his still-moving boyfriend to his flabbergasted friend and back before cracking his middle finger and thumb together in Stan's direction, giving him a very significant look before he caught up to Butters, who still hadn't realized they'd stopped. Stan still hadn't found his legs.

Why did everyone seem to have such a good grip on what he was supposed to be doing but himself?

"Stanie?" he heard Butters calling, and snapped out of his reverie. Having been called out so bluntly, however, he was more than a little pissed off. He stayed still.

"Stan, come on..." Kenny pleaded, not wanting the night to be ruined over something so stupid. Stan sighed, unable to agree more. He had enough stress in his life as it was without getting worked up when his friends were really just trying to help. He walked over to them and landed a dude-punch on Butters' left shoulder.

"Ow!"

"Pussy."

They could hear the music from the gym now, and Kenny groaned in tandem with Stan as he hid the flask in his coat pocket again. They approached the doors, three dudes dressed to impress with ties and bows which would soon be lost to boredom.

"This is going to suck."

First thing they saw when they walked in, other than tacky flashing disco lights in a dark auditorium and the vague shadows of their twenty something classmates dancing, was the abandoned picture panorama where all the couples must have taken their epic prom photos. The lights were off on the plastic 'stone' arch, and a couple of the fake roses on the fake vines had fallen down into the trampled confetti below. He wanted to scoff at it, but somehow found it too... depressing. Too desolate to mock.

"Hey there, boys," they heard the familiar voice of Mr. Mackey call out to them over the dated, pounding music. "Come 'n get your wristbands, m'kay?"

Stan looked over at Kenny, who raised an eyebrow at him as they both followed the bouncing Butters over to the welcome table. Poor old Mackey was dressed in his best, condemned to sit there all night and wrap a paper bracelet around a few handfuls of students, stuck until midnight with nothing to do. He seemed to be enjoying himself enough, though. Stan smiled at him as he put his wristband on, deciding not to question the pointlessness of it, since there were only so many students, no one was allowed (technically) to drink alcohol, and admittance and re-entry were free. He'd just think of it as a souvenir.

Soon as everyone was banded, they walked past the decrepit photo arch and into the crowd.

It was so lame.

So beyond what anyone would ever be able to call 'lame.'

In fact, it sullied the good name of 'lame.'

Most everyone was either dancing awkwardly in groups of girls, or sitting down in groups of guys—just what Stan and Kenny had expected to walk into. Butters, however, wasn't going to let the lackluster energy bring him down. Like always, he trotted off into the middle of the dance floor and boogied down in honor of Michael Jackson, the infamous GaGa, and the cast of Glee.

"Wanna go get some punch?"

"Probably tastes like fruity piss," Kenny snorted. "Sure."

They walked over to the snacks table, laden with two extra-large bowls of pink something-or-other, one of which was almost empty, and an even larger bowl of half-eaten, half-pulverized Dorito, Cheeto, and Cheez-It mix. Some napkins, paper plates, and plastic cups garnished the side of the table, with 'SPH 2010' printed in the school colors on them. Thank god they lived in this po-dunk, redneck, white trash, mountain town.

"You're not gonna go dance with Butters?" he asked Kenny, pouring his friend and himself a plate and a plastic cup full of white, lower-middle class goodies. They walked over to the fold out chairs and tables to sit down.

"Nah, not yet," he answered, smiling at the flash of blond jumping about in the short distance. "Probably save that for the after-party. Or a slow one, if he lets me—"

"After party?"

"Yeah, dude, at Bebe's house," Clyde's voice rang out, making Stan and Kenny jump slightly as they watched their classmate pull up a chair and sit between them. Clyde looked at them both, mostly Stan, amusedly. "Where have _you_ been?"

"Under a rock, apparently." Stan finished his punch and grimaced slightly. Too much lemon and grapefruit juice in the mix. He looked around the room, searching anywhere for the flash of red he so desperately wanted to see and avoid. No luck.

"Well," Clyde continued, "remember that hush-hush fundraiser she was doing these past few weeks?"

"Couldn't care less," Kenny quipped, causing Clyde to shove him.

"Shut up, douche, this is a good one!" he bitched, punching Kenny on the shoulder. "Well, she told everyone she trusted—me, Token, Wendy—" The sound of his ex's name almost made Stan snarl. "—Craig, Annie, and Red, she told us it was for the after party, and, after collecting all the cash, she tricked her parents into going out of town again by paying her older sister to fake a personal crisis out in California."

"The _fuck_?" Stan turned, looking at Clyde for the first time in the whole conversation. "Who _does _that?"

"Ha, I know!" Clyde cheered, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the debauchery to come. "Only Queen Bebe can pull that shit off. So, yeah, the 'rents are out, and we bought twice the alcohol we had last time. It's gonna be a shit show—Hey, Kyle."

Stan didn't look up. He couldn't. His eyes froze. He could have sworn they would bore a hole in the ground on the spot he'd been looking at. Moving would put his stupid, too-lemony-and-grapefruity punch at risk for ruining his rented tux at the sight of Kyle in his. Fuck that. He'd look up at him soon, surely...

"So," he heard Clyde finish, as he got up from his seat. "After party. Bebe's. You down?"

"Uh, yeah," he heard Kyle hesitate. "Guess so. See you there, man."

He heard the slapping together of hands. He heard the chair in between Kenny and himself creak with the weight of a human being. He smelled that god-forsaken wonderful smell that he'd been dying to smell for too fucking long now. And he still couldn't look up long enough to say something to him.

"Sup, dude?" he heard Kenny start, thanking him silently for breaking the silence.

"Bored," Kyle shrugged. Stan could see only from his knees down to his polished dress shoes. He _had_ to look up. Why wasn't he looking up? "So, there's an after party?"

"Apparently. Clyde came over to tell the whole story of Bebe's deceit-capade."

"Yeah, I heard..." Kyle mused. "That's kinda fucked, if you ask me. But, hey, free booze, right?"

Why couldn't he look up at him? Or say anything?

"Very true, dude. Very true."

"God, I could use a drink."

_IF YOU CAN'T LOOK THEN FUCKING SAY SOMETHING._

"I-have-a-flask-full-of-Jim-Beam-if-you-want-it's-kinda-half-empty-but-you-can-have-the-rest-if-you-want-I-mean."

Silence. Then—

"Dude, I was easier to understand when I used to close my parka around my mouth," Kenny said. "The fuck did you say?"

Stan shut his eyes in embarrassment. He could feel sweat forming on his forehead, the back of his tongue stuck to the back of his throat as he tried to swallow.

"...I have a flask with a bit of Jim Beam in it if... if you want."

_There. _

_You said something._

_Way to go._

Eyes fixed on the ground, he munched on some cheetos and heard Kenny laugh lightly. He sent him a telekinetic 'shut the fuck up.'

_...This sucks balls._

"Yeah, sure... We should probably go outside, though," Kyle said. "The music's giving me a headache."

The three of them got up and walked over to the back exit, Stan keeping his eyes anywhere but on Kyle's face. Kenny made sure no one was looking as Stan pushed open the door and walked the three of them into the open air. He watched Kyle take off his bowtie, sticking it in the door to keep it from shutting, and swallowed hard. Nervously, he waited for him to turn around before he handed him the flask, still not looking up at his face.

"Thanks."

"Sure."

Oh, it was awkward. It was tense and it was awkward, and tense all over again. Stan walked to the wall of the building and leaned against it, staring at the floor near Kyle and Kenny's feet. He heard Kenny opening his flask too and reached his hand out for it.

"Shit," Kyle coughed in between gulps. Normally, Stan would have laughed at him and patted him on the back to help him out. He hoped to God those days weren't over yet.

"You good?" Kenny asked, doing to Kyle exactly what Stan had just wanted to. His inside-self growled.

"Not yet," he laughed, taking another sip. He looked at Stan, who only could surmise as much out of the corner of his eyes. "Mind if I kill it?" Stan shrugged, and Kyle downed the rest of the contents of the silver metal container and handed it back to the raven haired paralytic. "Are you ever going to look at me?"

_Oh fuck._

Now he HAD to look.

_Oh fuck, oh fuck._

And, still, he didn't.

"Well?"

The subtle, yet clear warning tone in his voice was enough to make Stan feel like the eight year old he once was, being reprimanded for having done something very wrong; something he knew was very wrong. Kyle had the kind of effect on him that made him feel the old sweeps of nausea from his romantically excited childhood rearing their heads for the first time in a decade. The maddening feeling of reverting to his pre-pubescent self was deeply unnerving. And the fact that it was Kyle, whom he had shared everything with since they were too young to retain substantial memory, that was making him feel this way... that was still quite the pill to swallow.

Not for lack of trying, however.

So, since he needed to give an answer, he settled for the truth.

"I will when I feel like I can."

About forty-seven seconds passed in complete silence, broken only by the sound of rustling fabric and cardboard, followed by the click and flickering light of a lighter.

"You two are fucking stressing me out."

Kenny took a drag of his cigarette, exhaling deeply as he handed Stan the lighter and a smoke, whose hand was extended in a request for one. Stan closed his eyes and brought the cigarette to his lips and lighting it. He could feel Kyle's disapproval sinking into his skin.

"You shouldn't be smoking, dude," Stan told Kenny, handing him back his lighter. "You'll wreck your voice."

"Not like it's gonna be put to use anyway."

Stan, grateful as hell for the change of subject, pressed on. "You don't know that. I mean, you got _in_ to Juilliard. With good reason—"

"Right," Kenny scoffed. "Wasted a hundred bucks to be told I can go to the damn school if I have about a hundred thousand more."

"Oh, come on, dude," Kyle cut him off. "There's ways around that shit. If you really wanna make that happen—"

"—then make it happen," Stan finished, almost catching Kyle's eye but managing to avoid him at the last second. Another pause in conversation as blonde and black took long drags to drag out the time they needed to be silent. After a while, Kenny chuckled a somewhat cynical, but mostly hopeful, chuckle.

"You two are something else."

A little 'bing-bong' sound emanated from Kenny's pocket, and he flipped open his phone, responding to the text. Not two minutes later, the door they were leaning near opened as Butters, breathless from dancing, came out to find them. He opened his mouth to greet them and seemed to lose his words, as the sight of Kyle and Stan standing at a normal distance from each other made him do a double-take. Kenny pulled him close.

"Hey, what's up? You said you wanted to ask me something?"

"Oh, uh, yeah," he stuttered, looking away from the two who refused to look at each other. "I, um... you know that song I like? The one by the Drifters?"

"Uh huh..."

"Well, I, uh," he mumbled, looking down in shyness, even in front of the person who knew him best. "I put in a request, and it's coming up in a few songs, and I wanna... wanna dance? Just one, please?"

Kenny smiled.

"Come on," he said, taking Butters by the hand and leading him inside. He handed his flask over to Kyle before pausing at the door to look at them both. "Get your shit together, you two. It's the end of the end. And I'm not gonna fucking pick sides on this one. Us hanging out shouldn't be this... difficult."

Alone.

Finally.

.

.

.

.

.

_Shit._


	12. Secret

**Friday, April 9th**

It was dark in his room.

Sure, it wasn't like nighttime dark... His emo side, which was threatening to give goth-Stan a comeback, was wishing it were, but, still. His pinned-up towels managed to block out most of the 2pm sunlight of a Friday afternoon. He thought perhaps he should someday become an actor while dwelling on his accomplished feigning-sick skills, which had kept him out of school for the entire week. However, this was the last day he'd be able to keep up the charade without his mother dragging him to the hospital; he'd already had to talk her out of it twice. Briefly, he mused that he'd rather go to a doctor and stall for more time, but today was the last of the sick days he had left to use. One more and he'd be in serious danger of not graduating. Fucking Principal Victoria's a lot smarter than they give her credit for...

He'd have to make his miraculous recovery over the weekend.

And then, back to school; to face Kyle.

_Dammit. Probably shouldn't have used all the last sick days in one go._

He'd only gotten one text from Kyle the entire week he'd been out 'sick.' The logical side of his brain figured Kyle knew exactly what Stan's cowardly ass was up to, but the confused-psycho-idiot part found himself unnerved that Kyle wasn't blowing up his phone asking all the things his super best friend had every right to ask: why aren't you talking to me? or, what's wrong? or, since when are you this big a douche?

Instead, Kyle's only text had asked the one thing he didn't know how to answer:

'you okay?'

Fucking Kyle.

He knew full well that Kyle knew full well that Stan wasn't remotely ill. They'd known each other too well and too long. But even when he was being unjustly and disrespectfully snubbed by his best fucking friend who fucking fucked him, Kyle was still... Kyle. Still unfailingly kind and genuinely concerned. Still putting others, namely he, Stan-the-douche-bag-Marsh, before himself. Still asking just the right questions.

That text had been sent on Wednesday.

And it took him until 2:47 pm on a Friday afternoon to finally say something. At the very least, he managed to stay honest.

'not really.'

He put the phone down by his bed and timed a very well-acted sick cough as he heard his mother walk past his door. He flumped back onto the bed, looking at his recently sent text and irrationally wondering why Kyle wasn't immediately responding back when the rapidly-shrinking functional part of his brain told him he was probably sitting in class right now, like _he_ should be.

"Ugh."

He put his phone on the night stand and rolled over in the bed. He'd slept more than any person should have any right to over the past four days... But his dreams were never so vivid and unnerving as they had been since the first time he'd... In any case, whether they ended badly was a matter of interpretation. Sometimes they would end very well and he'd wake up hating the outcome. Other times, he'd revel in the rush of a catastrophic nightmare as he woke himself up crying and shaking. Every time he expected to feel a certain way about the outcome of a dream, he'd end up the opposite; or just plain torn.

This slumber ended up no different.

He had a dream that he and Kyle were on the Empire State building, standing on the shattered roof as it plummeted to the ground like the Titanic, holding onto Kyle for dear life as he told his redheaded friend all the things he'd apparently always wanted to say. With the wind rushing through his hair and debris flying all around them, Stan Marsh could have sworn he'd asked Kyle to 'marry' him as they rushed towards their end. He kissed him as he screamed "I love you," but then Kyle asked "Stan, what about_—_?," but before Stan could hear the end of the question, he was being pulled up by an entirely black, unfamiliar, quasi-female figure dragging him away into a helicopter, into safety, as he watched Kyle fall to his death. He woke up, panting, feeling like he'd just hit the bed from a height of fifty feet, his eyes frantic as he tried to relax them onto the clock. 7:56.

He re-capped what he could remember of the dream in his head as he calmed down, trying to ignore the swell of twisted confusion that overran him.

_Freud would have a fucking field-day with that one._

The worst part wasn't even the dream, or how terrifying it had been, or what it could possibly mean. The worst part was how unrealistically real it had been. He had _been_ there. He was _just there, _atop the crumbling New York landmark, gripping Kyle's forearm, watching the lights of the city rushing at them at an alarming, deadly rate. The feeling that it had all been so... real; that's what unnerved him the most. That's what had him jumping to a panic as they woke him up time after time. _Oh well._ At least it helped convince his mom he was sick; waking up pale, shaking, and sweating like that. It'd been happening a lot, lately. He heard his mother telling his father last night that she'd heard him screaming in his sleep the night before. By now, he didn't remember what those dreams were at all; just the feeling that lingered after them.

He felt like he was losing his fucking mind.

He picked up his phone to send Kenny a text, his heart giving one extra strong beat as it sped up the rest that followed it. Kyle had responded.

Christ, if a text got him _this_ excited...

He cooled his composure for no one and flipped open the phone.

'anything i can do?'

He felt himself get angry. _Anything you can do? Anything you can DO? The fuck, anything you can do! What the fuck is that?_

He aggressively composed a spiteful 'i think you've done enough' and pressed send, and then waited, knowing deep down that he was being unbelievably rude and irresponsible. A minute later, his phone buzzed.

'the fuck is that supposed to mean?'

He gritted his teeth, becoming steadily more immature and petty by the second, and astonished that Kyle couldn't read between the lines.

'leave me alone.'

So cliche how he was desperately hoping he wouldn't. He wanted to push him away and have him beg for it. He wanted Kyle to chase him, to text again and again like some desperate, clingy girl. Or something. He wanted to know Kyle was needing him as desperately as he, Stan, wouldn't admit. Only he was apparently doing it in the most asshole way possible.

'christ, fucking really turns you into a douche, doesn't it. wonder if wendy got this treatment after every time.'

He had nothing to say to that. A few minutes later, Kyle texted again.

'you know what? nevermind. never thought you were that guy who fucks his best friend and then turns into a total dick. i'm out.'

Only one thing left to save the sinking ship:

'come over.'

That was gonna go down well.

'why?'

He had to phrase it in such a way that would worry him enough to actually get him to walk through the cold at 8:30pm to his house. Once again, he settled for just the truth.

'i need you to.'

He had no way of knowing if Kyle was going to come or not before the knock on the front door of his house distantly hit his ears. He had gotten no response to the last text, and spent the last twenty minutes gritting his teeth on an imaginary stick of pride to keep him from sending 'are you coming?' through the airwaves. He let out a breath he'd barely noticed he'd been holding and waited for the sound of footsteps up the stairs to follow the knock from a minute ago.

There they were.

He pushed his hair back the way he used to when he was about to knock on Wendy's door for a Saturday night date, and mentally kicked himself for caring before he hastily made his hair as messy as possible, and then fixed it again. The doorknob turned and the door clicked open, and Kyle stepped into the room, softly closing it behind him and resisting the urge to shuffle his feet as Stan knew was his custom. He put his hands in his pockets.

There they were.

Stan and Kyle.

Only not really just Stan and Kyle anymore. Something had changed. Obviously, given what had happened, they couldn't have expected much else. But neither of them had expected it to be so... palpable. Something had fundamentally shifted between them, and Stan couldn't understand the difference between when it excited him and when it terrified him. Both had somehow morphed together to create a whole new feeling he was having trouble recognizing. He got up out of his bed and walked across the room, past Kyle, who walked towards the middle, to lock the door silently. He could feel that primal, possessed him waking up somewhere in himself as the smell of Kyle taunted him when they crossed paths. Fuck. He needed some self control. Walking back over to his bed, he couldn't help but notice the adorable way the redhead was standing. Hands still in his pockets, his emotional guard was obviously up as his lips parted about three inches under his furrowed brow.

"So, why am I here?"

He probably should have been able to show more restraint, given that, this time, neither of them had been drinking or smoking anything_—_except that cigarette he'd had at the beginning of the wait after he'd texted that he needed him. But no, impetuous Stan walked briskly over to Kyle and grabbed him by the shoulders before he kissed him hard.

If he'd been in his right mind, he would have put two and two together that Kyle's miniature minute protest and sub-sequent surrender meant that Kyle was just as out of his wits as he was. No one who could use reason would kiss the person who had treated them so shittily with that kind of fervor. They stumbled back onto Stan's bed and clumsily collapsed together in a heap, making out like the hormones-on-hyperdrive high school seniors that they were. They pulled at each other's clothing with no aim nor reason but for expressing the intensity of what they were feeling. It took almost fifteen minutes for Kyle to finally get a grip on himself.

"Wait, wait_—_" he said in between kisses, pushing Stan away slightly and shrinking away on the bed to see him fully. "Wait."

Stan's eyes had become heavy-lidded again, his brow knit slightly in frustration that what he had so been enjoying had suddenly stopped. He almost pouted before he moved in for another kiss, for which Kyle pushed him away a little more forcefully this time.

"I'm not fucking doing this with you if you're just gonna turn into an asshole again and not talk to me for a week."

The light went off, and his pupils rapidly un-dilated as the severity of his situation hit him like a cinderblock dropped from an airplane.

"Kyle... I just..." he struggled, wanting to just keep kissing but knowing it would lead to what he didn't think he'd want. Or wouldn't want. Or whatever. "I don't... I don't know what's going on here."

He looked over at his friend for an answer. Kyle looked at him blankly for a second and then blinked.

"Oh, and I do?" he snipped. "You fuck me, which, as I recall, was all your idea_—_"

"It wasn't_—_"

"Yes, it was_—_"

"No, I_—_" Stan tried to protest, knowing full well that Kyle was right before he got cut off again.

"_—_and then you don't talk to me for a week after practically covering me in dust from your car tires as you run away. So, Stan, forgive _me_ for not knowing what's going on here."

He scratched his head for something to do, and then buried his head in the pillow, talking through the muffle. "Can't we just... you know...

"Dude, I can't understand you."

He lifted his head. "Look, I don't know why I'm... I'm not, you know, like that... but I just wanna_—_"

"Thank you for making sense."

"Dammit, can't we just... not ask questions right now? And just... I don't know_—just_."

He pulled him close and breathed down onto his lips, grazing his fingers over the small of his back. Seducing him. He was fucking _seducing_ him. _Again. _He would have seen Kyle's eyes flutter shut had his own been open, and they both leaned in this time, falling deep into affection and desire. However, the smarter of the pair came to his senses a little quicker this time around. A little under five minutes.

"Stan," he said in between kisses, half-hypnotized through his reason. "I cant," kiss "do this with you if you're not," another kiss, "if you don't want_—_"

"Trust me," he breathed heavily, pushing his hips forward and pulling Kyle's closer to make evident his 'want' and make Kyle groan, which he did. He grinned. "I want."

The latter gritted his teeth. "No, y-you don't," kiss, "know what you want," he finished off, pulling away and putting a hand on Stan's chest, distancing him. "Am I gonna be able to talk to you on Monday at school?"

_Fuck._

"Of course," he semi-lied, hoping Kyle wouldn't see through it. Fat chance.

"Don't fucking lie to me, Stan. Not to _me_," Kyle snarled, pulling away on the bed and sitting up. "Fine, let me ask you this: am I gonna be able to hold your hand like Kenny and Butters do?"

"They don't hold hands at school."

"Sometimes they do, I've seen them_—_fuck, that's not the point, Stan!"

"Keep your voice down, dude," he warned, glancing at the door, paranoid that his dad had his ear pressed against it or something.

"Stan," he half-whispered, respecting his friend's request. "I'm not just... You don't understand what you're doing. To me. Here. I don't wanna be your, and I can't believe I'm actually using this phrase, but I'm not gonna be your dirty little secret. That's not what I want from _you_. And that's not what I'm gonna let you turn me into."

"Christ, dude, I haven't even wrapped my head around this and you already wanna hold hands in school?" Stan snapped, half-outraged.

"Goddammit, you're such a retard_—_I'm not asking_—_"

Stan sighed, falling back down into the pillow before resurfacing again to talk. "Fine, then, do you realize _what_ you're asking of me?"

Kyle stayed silent for a few seconds. "I'm asking you not to make me your experimental fuck toy."

Stan blinked, astonished that Kyle would ever think that he would sink so low and self-disgusted that there was a substantial part of him in danger of doing just that. It was, after all, what he'd just been about to do. He had no plans to hold Kyle's hand on Monday at school, though he felt his friend had jumped the gun there a bit, but he understood somewhere that Kyle wasn't being completely literal. He had no plans to even talk to Kyle, or be able to, if what happened last week happened again. Which it almost did. He had no plans to make any of this go further than it ever could, since he'd never expected to take anything with Kyle this far to begin with. He needed to say something to appease him, to make Kyle think that he wasn't being as big a selfish fuck as he was.

"I won't... I wouldn't," he said finally. "I just... need to process this for a bit," he stalled, hoping Kyle would agree to give him the time to think things over. After about thirty seconds or so, he felt Kyle get up from the bed and watched him walk to the door, giving him a nervous and hopeful look right as he unlocked the lock and lightly stepped out.

He had no intention to process anything. At least, not in the way Kyle was obviously hoping he would. He couldn't do it. Imagining holding Kyle's hand at school had unnerved him immensely, and not in a good way. He had no reason to make this any more life-altering than it had already become. In fact, he'd be damned if he didn't try his very hardest to backpedal all the way to fourth grade. He would bring them back to a completely platonic place, and forget everything that had happened last Friday and this one. Everything.

He laughed sardonically before letting loose a long, frustrated groan into his sheets.

If only he could make himself stop wanting everything to happen all over again.


	13. Unlucky

_**Prom Night**_

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_._

_._

_._

_Fuck._

_Shit._

_Fucking __**shit**__._

"So, now what?"

Kyle looked at him, almost amused that Stan had actually just used that as the ice-breaker for them. He held back a smirk and shook his head, making Stan look down in embarrassment as he flicked his cigarette.

"So, you're a smoker now?" Kyle commented, the disapproval in his voice and eyes clear as the night sky above them.

"An occasional smoke when stressed does not a 'smoker' make," Stan replied, taking the last drag before discarding the filter onto the floor, the stamping it out made unnecessary by the moisture of the snow it fell on. He stamped it out anyway.

"That's what smokers say right before they become smokers."

"So, you're a tight-ass now?" Stan quipped, getting sick of being reprimanded for something they both did on occasion back when they used to be friends. Kyle grinned.

"Yeah, well, judging by the sounds you were making a month and a half ago in the backseat of your car, that's nothing new."

Stan would have burst out laughing had the comment not made him flush like he'd just climbed out of said place. Kyle laughed lightly, staring out into the distance of the road in front of him.

"No one wants to kiss a smoker."

Stan looked at Kyle. "Smokers do."

_What a stupid answer._

"I'm not a smoker," Kyle said bluntly, turning his whole body to face him.

"Not like you've never smoked before," Stan pointed out, turning in tandem with Kyle.

"Weed, not cigarettes," he noted. "Weed doesn't leave that shit taste in your mouth."

"You've smoked both before, dude." They stood face to face, a few feet apart, the gap closing with one step in the other's direction every time they spoke. They were about two feet away from each other when Kyle turned away and leaned back against the wall to look up at the stars again.

"So, why are you stressed, then?" Kyle asked, something genuine in his voice this time. Some concern. Some... something... Not that caring and concern were rare things for Kyle to express_—_the absolute contrary, to be frank. But lately, anger and sarcasm had been more his drink of choice.

"What?"

"You said 'an occasional smoke when stressed.' So," he said, leaning back against the wall and tilting his head up towards the sky. "Why are you stressed?"

Stan didn't know what to say. He didn't understand why Kyle had asked such a stupid question. Wasn't it obvious? He was stressed because of _him_. He was stressed because he himself was a fucking idiot. He was stressed because his life was going so far off the tracks he'd imagined it on. He was stressed because he'd most likely messed everything he never knew he wanted up for good. He was stressed because he still couldn't come to terms with needing something_—_someone-he never expected or, honestly, wanted to need. He was stressed because, without what he needed, he couldn't live anymore. But living with what he needed was not what he'd ever thought he'd want.

He could have sworn it was obvious.

He tried to get a hold of his own thoughts, to harness them into some coherent sentences so he could explain all this to Kyle, but found it impossible. Instead, he settled for another stupid, impulsive answer.

"I'm stressed because you're not a smoker."

Kyle blinked, turning to look at him, utterly confused.

"What?"

Stan sighed. He didn't get it.

"Never mind."

"Fuck that, 'never mind,'" Kyle insisted, getting up off the wall again to stand in front of Stan. "What do you mean?"

Stan sighed, and took a generous breath. "You said 'no one wants to kiss a smoker,' and I said, 'smokers do,' and you said 'I'm not a smoker.' I'm stressed because you're not a smoker."

_There, that wasn't so hard, was it?_

Kyle looked at him blankly; unmoving.

_Never mind._

"Ugh," Stan grunted in frustration. Why wasn't he more articulate when he needed to be? "Don't move."

He opened the door to the gym, Shania Twain's 'You're Still The One' grating on his ears almost as badly as any J-Lo song. No, not quite that bad. Twain was more tolerable than the talentless J-Lo. _Shut up, Marsh_. He made a dash for the punch bowl, filling a plastic cup before turning around and heading back outside. He caught a glimpse of Kenny and Butters, sitting down and waiting for their song, catching the latter's eye as he walked back out the door. Kyle was still there. He looked at him for a half second before drinking half the contents of his plastic cup, swishing it around in his mouth as though it were Listerine for about twenty seconds before he turned around and spit it out onto the snow.

"Uagh," he grimaced, the lemon-tastic citrus of the punch neutralizing the taste of cigarettes in his mouth. Downing the rest of the vile mix, he repeated his actions, crumpling up the cup and tossing it on the ground before turning to look at Kyle. If he could tell what was going to happen, he gave no indication.

"Don't litter, Stan," he blurted nervously, stepping back slightly as Stan advanced in his direction, a very familiar look in his eyes.

"Shut up."

My God, he'd missed those lips.

Such perfect, amazing, amazing lips.

Unlike the first time, however, this kiss was softer. Strong, passionate, yet gentle. He slinked his fingers into the curls he'd missed so much and waited, prayed for Kyle to start kissing him back. Gentle, confident kisses he unleashed on his lips, using his free hand to pull him forward and close the gap. Kyle's hands pushed on his chest, almost in protest, before they came to a rest. His lips moved.

_Finally_.

Stan pulled him in tighter, wrapping his arms around Kyle's entire body where they held him. He opened his mouth to take a breath and heard Kyle stifle the smallest of moans. Stan stepped forward and turned Kyle clockwise, resting his own back against the wall and giving Kyle the opportunity to take the lead.

He let out a wanton breath and Kyle hesitated, looking straight into Stan's blue eyes, shining by the light of the streetlight and the moon with the intensity of what he felt. They both pulled in close and kissed in earnest, pouring out everything they'd been putting away into each other, every feeling of the past almost two months, and the past eighteen years. It was like one of them had been off to war and just come back alive. Nothing made him feel more so. No one made him feel more so.

So, so alive.

After a few, they stopped for air, forehead resting on forehead, breathing with just the lightest amount of heaviness. Stan couldn't help breaking into momentary smiles against Kyle's lips as they continued, lightly, tenderly, wherever they could kiss the other.

"I've missed you," Stan sighed out. Kyle almost hesitated before he bit down on Stan's bottom lip, not hard enough to do any damage, but enough to get his point across. "Ow!" The dark-haired boy pulled back an inch or so before Kyle kissed him again.

"That's for_—_"

"I know," Stan stopped him, unwilling to hear his fuck-ups vocalized at a time like this. "Still," he pouted, sucking on his bottom lip to ease the tender little pain Kyle had caused, and grinned before moving in for another. In the middle of it all, he felt the sudden need to apologize_—_to start to scratch the surface of making amends now that they were alone. It would take a while, he knew, and he wasn't sure how to even go about it past this, but baby steps are better than no steps.

"Kyle, listen... I'm..." he faltered, looking down at the thin layer of snow in shame and watching the light cloud of his breath cover his view. "I don't know how to_—ugh_, fuck. Okay, I'm sorry, okay? I'm... dammit, I'm so bad at this." His eyes wandered up to meet Kyle's, which were watching him intently. His nerves, already firing up, started to go somewhere between that and apeshit. "I'm trying to apologize. You get that, right?"

"Uh," Kyle mumbled, looking at him with one eyebrow ever-so-slightly raised. "...Yeah."

"Yeah?" Stan rubbed his neck. "Yeah, okay. Well, yeah. I'm_—_fuck, dude. I'm sorry. I don't know... I still don't know what I'm_—_I mean, it's still all so fucking... Kyle, are you listening to me?"

He wasn't. Or at least only half-listening. His ears had obviously picked something else up and he was slowly breaking into a smile. Stan would have thought he looked beautiful if he hadn't just been interrupted at the worst possible time by something which was apparently more important to listen to than his heartfelt apology, which wasn't going very well anyway. Kyle's grin reached the point where only one dimple on the right hand corner of his mouth was visible, and he turned to look at Stan.

"You really wanna apologize?" Kyle asked him, his smile fading slightly, serious all of a sudden. Stan blinked.

"Well, uh... yeah, I was trying to_—_" he started saying before Kyle laced his fingers with Stan's and pulled him towards the door they had come out of, stuffing his bow-tie door prop in his pocket as he dragged Stan through the dimly lit space. He could hear a lazy, 1960's soulful doo-wop song starting up through the speakers as they reached the edge of the dance floor, just in time to see Kenny and Butters, standing slightly off-center, with only two or so more couples near them, as the taller of the two proceeded to sweep the other around the polished wood to the beat.

"Come on," Kyle whispered at Stan, tugging him forward slightly. Stan, however, was rooted to the floor.

"Kyle, no," he said urgently, pulling him back, panicked at the thought of repeating what was happening in front of him, but unable to look anywhere but at his two friends. Annie and Kevin and the other couple he didn't pin-point had walked off the platform, and they were now dancing alone. Some people had gone to get punch, some had gone outside for a smoke break. Most were watching. They looked so... happy. He stood and watched, transfixed; amazed at how brave they were both being. Sure, it wasn't like this was the year the song they were dancing to came out-they weren't putting themselves in any real danger. Most of the students seemed either very interested or completely uninterested. Only a handful looked annoyed or similar. And they were douche bags anyway. But through all his thought, he had yet to realize that Kyle was staring curiously, almost snappishly at him.

"Why not?" he asked calmly, unable to hide the anger rising in his voice. Stan, still lost in thought, couldn't find the right words to explain. Kenny and Butters were glowing. Fucking glowing while doing something he thought he'd never have the courage to_—_

"Wha... I mean, cause_—_wait, what?"

Kyle laughed in relief. "Dance with me," he asked him formally, extending his other hand. Stan's throat hitched. The corner of his eye caught Butters being spun around gracefully.

"Wha_—_" he choked, "Why?"

Kyle's smile started to fade. "You said you wanted to apologize." There was still hope in his voice. Stan looked around the room at everyone who was watching: Wendy was smiling with her head on Cartman's shoulder as they watched sitting down, who was trying his best to look bored. Token and Bebe were making out in a corner. Craig looked somewhat uncomfortable as Red positively bounced on her heels, squealing inwardly with glee.

But this was different. People already knew about Kenny and Butters.

"Well, yeah, but..."

Kenny and Butters went public months ago.

"So, then?" Kyle pressed, still excited at the prospect and expecting Stan to give in.

"The song's almost over, anyway," he stalled.

"So, then you'll only have to dance a little," Kyle reasoned, his fingers very loosely holding on now. Stan looked down and then up again, but this time, back at his friends. Kenny and Butters.

Kenny and Butters deserved to have this moment to themselves. Because Kenny and Butters were way farther ahead in the going-through-shit-together-as-you-fall-in-love game than he and Kyle were. They weren't going to make everyone here's jaws hit the floor as they kissed while dancing on it. Well, not all of them, anyway.

He couldn't do that with Kyle. Not in front of everyone. Not right then.

"Kyle, I want to_—_" he said honestly, almost giving Kyle's hand a squeeze as he felt the other's grip on his fingers soften sadly. He wanted to be able to do this, but he neither wanted to interrupt on their friends' moment, nor was he ready for his relationship with Kyle to come crashing through the doors like this at everyone. No one but the intimate pair on in the spotlight knew anything about it. Except for Wendy, of course. Or maybe he was just kidding himself. Either way. "I just... dancing? It's..." he paused, trying and failing to find the right words. "It's too much_—_I can't just_—_"

Stan felt his hand slump off on its own as Kyle let go. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Kyle walked off, the swell of air from the swiftness of his departure washing over Stan as the world went somewhat silent around him. Maybe it was because the song was ending. Or maybe it was because baby steps, which he had just failed in successfully putting towards fixing him and Kyle, were better than no steps at all.

And certainly better than backwards ones.

_Mmmhm, save... the last dance for me._

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* * *

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**A.N: **serious kudos to he or she who knows what that last part of the chapter was in homage to.


	14. Hide

**April 12th**

Monday rolled around quicker than Stan could even manage a groan at its approach. The weekend was spent making a gradual and miraculous fake-recovery for his parents, but still with the lingering feigned sickness which allowed him to stay in his own room without question from anyone but his sister, who had come home from college that weekend for the summer, and to see her little 'turd' brother graduate, at the request of their parents. She seemed keen to interrupt Stan on his seldom trips to and from his room, saying nothing but a grimace and a growl, half the time sharply raising a fist as she'd pretend to punch him, cackling away with laughter after he flinched every time.

"How's your boyfriend, turd?" she snarled at him over breakfast that morning. Stan's head shot up like a lightning bolt to glare a terrified set of daggers at Shelley, both warning and pleading with her not to reveal anything about him and Kyle, and still questioning how the hell, after not having been home for a year, she seemed to just… know. His shock and confusion made him feel like he was going to cry into his eggs. He bucked up and shot her a warning glare. He glanced around the room, glad to see his father was nowhere in earshot and his mother was too busy on the stove to notice.

"Shut up, Shelley," he growled, pushing forward his breakfast plate and slumping into his chair to stare out the window. It was a beautiful day out. He watched a ray of sunlight glint through the frosted corners of his kitchen window, right through the bouquet of red carnations his mother had bought to honor Shelley's return home, making the top of the kitchen counter glow with a warm, orange and red light – exactly the color of Kyle's hair. Stan marveled at it for what seemed too long and too short a time, imagining his fingers running through the light of Kyle's locks, outside in the sun where all of South Park High could see – he was lost… Lost in a memory he longed to make but dared not dream of … until his sister sent her soft-boiled egg flying through the air via spoon at his face.

"WHA—THE FUCK!"

Shelley was positively bent over with laughter.

"Shelley Marsh!" their mother shrieked, running over to the sink to fetch a dishtowel. "If you hadn't just come home, I would –"

"What the fuck, Shelley!'" Stan protested, snatching the towel out of his mother's hand and wiping the raw egg off his face. "She just egged me! Ground her! Do something!" He looked down at his shirt, covered in yolk and undercooked egg-white, groaning. Great… his favorite shirt. Kyle gave him this shirt. Or, rather, Stan had borrowed it and refused to return it on the grounds that it 'looked better on him,' a joke of an excuse until Kyle had agreed… "Now I have to change again!"

"Oh, poor girly turd has to get a new dress for the day," Shelley chuckled, flinging some potatoes his way.

"Fuck you!" Stan spat, tossing back the potatoes. Randy, who had been reading the funnies up until this point, tried to hide his giggles behind his newspaper.

"Eggs are the most nutritious breakfast, turd!"

"Grow up, Shelley," Stan grumbled, getting up to change right as another soft, warm sphere collided with his ear and burst all over the side of his face and neck.

He didn't even bother looking down at his shirt. His fists clenched around his napkin, putting it down on the surface of the table as he dripped egg all over his plate.

"You…" he walked to the fridge, "little," he picked up an egg, "BITCH!" he screamed, flinging an egg her way as hard as he could, but missed in his anger and shot the thing right through his father's newspaper. Randy shot up from his seat, groaning, moaning and wiping crushed egg-bits from his chest.

"STANLEY!" Sharon bellowed, silencing all human voices in the kitchen. Shelley pulled her napkins over her mouth to cover up the insane amount of laughter that was spilling from her person.

"What!" Stan screamed back, unable to control his boldness. "She throws eggs in my face and I'm the one that gets yelled at? I'm gonna go change, I'm gonna be late for school—""

"Oh no, turd! Did I ruin your boyfriend's shirt?" his sister chuckled. Stan turned as red as the hair he had not so long ago been imagining burying his face into.

"Boyfriend?" Randy started, stopping in the middle of cleaning off the misthrown egg and looking at his son.

"Yeah, Dad, didn't you know?" Shelley grinned, looking straight at her brother. "Stan's in love—"

"Shelley!"

"—with his best—"

"FUCK YOU!" Stan screamed desperately over the final word 'friend' spoken by his sister. The silence that followed deafened even the sounds of the Colorado 'spring' breeze. Randy looked like he'd just been shot in the gut, instead of just hit with an egg.

"Stan…" his father whispered, the disbelief in his voice masked unsteadily with nervous laughter. "She's joking—"

"It's not a—" Shelley started.

"Of course it's a joke, Dad," Stan jumped in, ripping of his prized, soft gray cotton Kyle-tee and walking to the kitchen door. "Shelley's just being a bitch."

"Stanley!" his mother cried. "Watch your language!"

He took the stairs to his room two at a time and shut the door so loudly it should have served as proof that what had almost been revealed to his father was, indeed, true. But neither Stan nor his father would accept it. He tossed the shirt with difficulty into his laundry basket and searched his drawers for something else to wear. Through his rummaging, he failed to hear the door creak open as his sister sneaked into his room. The shutting of the door, however, went unmissed. Stan whirled around.

"What do you want." It was not a question – it was a command: get the _fuck_ out.

"Didn't think you'd turn out gay, little turd," Shelley smirked at him. Stan waved her off impatiently.

"I have a girlfriend. Her name is Wendy Testaburger, in case you—"

"Hmm… that's not the name I've heard coming out of your room for the past weekend while you were sleeping."

His face went blank.

"I must have been dreaming of something weird," he muttered, "now get out of my room."

"Pretty weird to have the same weird dream every night—"

"Shit happens."

"—and to spend every night screaming about it—"

"What are you—"

"Kyle!," she imitated him, "Kyle! Kyle, I'm sorry!"

"We had a fight!" he covered himself, "Friends fight! It's nothing more than—"

"Kyle, Kyle, come here…"

"Shelley, stop—"

"Kyle, don't leave me!"

He felt dizzy. His head was spinning with images from the million and a half dreams he'd had which could have very easily provoked him to say all those things. "When did I—"

"Kyle, I love you!"

Stan dropped his clothes and whirled around to face his sister.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, SHELLEY! You go abroad for a year and all of a sudden you're back and you think you know everything that's going on, well, YOU DON'T. NOW GET. THE FUCK. OUT—OF—MY—ROOM!"

"Stanley!" he heard his mother crying from downstairs, and soon the sound of hurried footsteps followed her voice. "What is going ON in here?"

"Tell her to get out of my room!"

"You're both old enough to deal with this yourselves!" She cried, opening the door to her son's room. "Shelley, come help me downstairs. Stan, your father is waiting to take you to school in the car—"

"I'd rather walk—"

"NOW, STANLEY."

Stan grunted, tossing a few shirts on the floor and grabbing one blindly from his hanging closet, pulling it over his head and making sure to bump roughly past his sister on his way out. He pulled on his backpack and walked out the door, and suddenly a feeling of deep dread came over him. Reluctantly, he sat down in the passengers seat.

"I can walk, Dad, really—"

"Stanley, are you gay?"

"No," he responded immediately, feeling that a lie detector may have gone berserk under his pulse as he said it and looking anywhere but the direction of his father. He could hear the fear in both their voices, though he struggled hard to make his silent.

"I thought you were dating Wendy—"

"I am," he replied, the resoluteness in his voice hanging in the air until it put an end to the conversation. Randy made a satisfied little 'hmph' in the back of his throat and relaxed visibly into his chair. He started the car. Stan wanted to throw up.

"Good. She's a nice girl."

By the time they reached the school, Stan was ready to storm flying into the bathroom stall and spend his whole first period puking his guts up. He vaguely heard Randy call after him as he jumped out of the car, but he didn't acknowledge it. He shut the door and sped away as fast as he could, pausing just before he reached the doors to take a breath. The week for ignoring his friend was over. He couldn't keep being a fucking asshole like this and expect to live with himself.

He went inside.

Whirling shapes of vague and blurred student bodies sped to and fro as he made his way down the hall. An excited twist began to toss and turn in the pit of his stomach as he thought back to the light on the kitchen counter that reminded him of Kyle's hair, and he looked everywhere for a sign of that color or the bright green that typically covered it up, but saw none. Kyle was usually one of the first people here… so, where was he?

He glanced into the computer room as he passed it by. No Kyle. He kept on walking, taking a quick detour through the library, expecting to find his friend buried in books in one of the corners. Still no Kyle… Stan frowned, and turned back to head for the lockers. He bumped into Kenny on the way.

"Hey dude—"

"Where's Kyle?" Stan practically yelled, making Kenny jump backwards slightly.

"I don't know, he's not here yet, I guess—"

"He's always here by now!" He looked like a cartoon character, pulling at his hair in frustration.

"I haven't seen him yet, I'm sorry," Kenny said, stunned. Stan looked panicked, his eyes darting back and forth desperately. Just then, he caught in the corner of his eye the jet-black hair of his best friend's little brother. "Stan—"

But he had already sped off to Kyle's locker. Ike was rummaging through it, putting books into what Stan recognized as Kyle's backpack and taking others out to put them back.

"Ike, where's Kyle?"

He didn't answer. Stan watched him pull out Kyle's pencil case and stuff a few more things in it.

"Ike?"

He put the pencil case away, zipped up the bag and swung it over his shoulder.

"Ike, where's—"

"You're a smart kid, Stan," the preteen answered him, turning to look straight at him. Somehow, despite the fact that he was six years his junior, Ike seemed to stand tall before him, making Stan feel their places were changed. "I think you can figure it out from here, given that you've spent last week doing the same thing he's resigned himself to."

"What are you talking about? What have I been doing?"

"Hiding."

They stood there for a moment, Ike's gaze making Stan feel smaller by the second. For a minute or two, neither of them said a word, but Stan could feel the black-haired boy scrutinizing every twitch and quiver in his expression, slowly and silently giving away the missing pieces of the story he'd already managed to piece together without.

"Don't hold your breath this week, Stan," Ike sighed. "He won't be here. And if he does manage to come in, I beg you… don't … don't make him wish he hadn't."

"What do you mean—"

"Kyle _never_ misses school—"

"I know that! Why is he—"

"Don't play the idiot!" Ike snapped, "It's not becoming of you, you know damn well why he's not here—"

"Ike, I—"

"Look, Stan," Ike stopped him, raising his hand in a soft halt. "I don't know what happened between you, he hasn't told me, but I can guess. Long time coming, if you ask me and pardon the pun," Stan blushed at his suggestion. "But whether you want it or not, Kyle is now very sure that you don't."

Stan furrowed his brow, instinct urging him to argue the contrary. He opened his mouth to do just so, but… couldn't. "I need to talk to him," Stan finally managed to croak out, fighting back tears which seemed to come from nowhere, but managing with great effort to keep them from rising.

"About what?"

Stan couldn't answer.

"That's what I thought," Ike said resolutely. "If you don't know, don't drag him into your own confusion. Whether you don't know, won't admit, or just plain aren't gay—" Stan whirled around 360 quickly in a panic to see if anyone had heard that. "—see? If you think you'll do him any good when you can't even stand the sound of the word, then you're no longer playing an idiot. You are one."

Stan couldn't hold his gaze any longer. He looked at the floor like a petulant child.

"Whether you want it or not," Ike continued, "make sure you figure it out soon. Either way, since your regret has been made clear—" Stan opened his mouth to protest. "—do me, no, do _him_ the favor, and give him the space he needs to move on… Otherwise, you're setting you and him both for a lot of painful silences. You broke his heart."

At those words, Stan felt the floor disappear under his feet. He swayed, almost falling over as his knees barely kept from giving out from under him. He vaguely sensed that Ike had started to walk away, but he couldn't move. As if from somewhere in the great distance, he heard him speak again.

"If he does show up, let him be. Please."

If the shapes of all his classmates had been blurred before, he could no longer discern whether or not they were even people. Everything lost its shape. He heard the distant ring of the bell shattering his thoughts. _You broke his heart._

He stumbled down the corridor, bumping into here and there, him and her, who, he didn't care.

_You broke his heart_.

He felt his own hand push the swinging door of the bathroom, dropping his things in the middle of the floor as he crashed into an empty stall and decorated the inside of the toilet bowl with his wretch. Ike's voice echoed in his ears.

_You broke his heart._


	15. Broken

**Prom Night.**

"Kyle—"

"Alright, students," an electronic screech, and then the megaphoned voice of Mr. Mackey filled the air being vacated by the sound of the Drifters. "Hope you all had a great time at the prom—"

"Kyle—"

"Get home safe, m'kay—"

"Kyle, WAIT—" But he was moving too fast. Glimpses of red kept flashing and vanishing in the sea of black, white, and tacky bright dresses. Man, that little fucker sure could run when he needed to.

"Don't forget to be here at the gym at noon on Sunday for commencement, m'kay—"

"Kyle, _please." _He was catching up, thanks be to the gaggle of girls that got in the furious Jewish boy's way.

"Goodnight, kids!"

"KYLE," he screamed out, almost catching his hand in a wild grab he'd made. He missed, and his fingers clutched the end of his jacket. He felt it tear slightly. His once-friend stopped, his fist visibly shaking with anger as he turned his head slightly to the right, profile facing Stan; his voice was steady and low.

"You broke our friendship, then you broke my heart, then my trust, and now, you've broken my fucking jacket." He turned his head towards the door, and pulled the fabric viciously out of Stan's hands. "Get the fuck away from me before you do any more damage."

_Now or never, Stan._

He grabbed Kyle's wrist and whirled him around to face him, with every intention to kiss him right there in front of all the departing students who were heading to their cars destined for Bebe's abode. But perhaps Kyle really had had enough, because before Stan could even try, Kyle walloped him across the face with the side of his nearly-fully formulated fist. He didn't even look to see his handiwork, almost sprinting to catch up with Clyde and Token. Stan walked briskly, shaken, making it outside just in time to see the flash of bright auburn disappear behind the shutting back door of Token's mini-Hummer.

He touched the side of his face. That would leave a nice little tinge of purple for Sunday's photos.

Sighing, he turned around to look back at the entrance, waiting for Kenny and Butters to come out so they could get to the party themselves. Sure enough, they appeared within the minute, Kenny's arm around Butters' shoulders, right hand fingers laced in right hand fingers, an endless kiss on the smaller's forehead. He looked up.

"Stan?" Butters said, asking without having to ask why he looked so distressed.

"He punched me," Stan told them simply, nodding in the direction to Bebe's house, to which they would be walking. Kenny blinked. "Well, he sorta. He wasn't in a good stance for punching. Woulda maybe knocked me out, otherwise. He was going for it."

"Why did he punch you," Kenny sighed, unable to hide his exasperation.

Stan stayed quiet for a bit, vaguely listening to the sound of the rest of their class exiting and jumping into their cars."…'cause I'm a coward."

The walk to Bebe's took about ten minutes, during which Kenny and Butters had a few short conversations; sometimes one of them would try to say something towards their friend, who stayed quietly lost in thought. He didn't say a thing until they finally reached the door of Bebe's house.

"Now or never, Stan," he told himself.

Kenny and Butters glanced at each other anxiously before opening the door.

Most people, having driven there, already looked like they shouldn't drive back any time soon. They seemed to be crossing the threshold between tipsy and drunk. The blonde pair glanced at each other again and smirked, heading in and straight for the table with the plastic bottles of cheap, awful vodka and rum and various juices. Stan scanned the room, looking for his favorite combination of not-at-all-Jewish colors. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, dearie!" Red's voice was like… a comedic actress who can only do one voice and one role. Like Janice on Friends, but more… cheerleader-on-Valium-y. It was almost endearing. Almost. "You need alcohol."

"Nah, I'm good."

She looked at him like he'd grown a new hand out of his ear.

"Stan… It's… it's prom night." She said matter-of-factly through her shock. "You can't… not drink."

Stan laughed at her bemusement. "No, really, I'm driving a lot of people home tonight," he lied, smiling at her reassuringly so she'd stop pushing the subject.

"Good boy," she purred, pushing herself a little closer. He almost groaned out loud at his uncomfortableness, half-wondering if Craig just happened to be right behind him. "That's good, that's, you're so responsible, aww, sweetie!" She took a sip from both cups and looked off to her left. "Broflovskiiii!"

She thrust one of her drinks at Stan's chest, making him grab it as she grabbed Kyle by the wrist and pulled him to quicken the pace at which he made his way over to them. "How are you, Valedictorian? Excited for your speech?"

Kyle laughed and put his arm around her. Then he made a mock-terrified face and grabbed for Red's drink to take a huge gulp. She laughed, finishing her drink off and hugging Kyle around the neck. They swayed a little. Kyle was definitely drunk.

"Oh, you're fine, genius," she teased.

"No, Ike's a genius."

"Yeah!" she practically squealed. "Well, you wrote it, right? The speech?"

"Yeah," Kyle grumbled, looking around and seeing a half-full cup, sniffing it, and making to take a sip.

"That's safe," Stan remarked. Kyle looked up at him, the cup almost at his lips. He flashed a smirk and then chugged it's contents, putting it back down on the counter, and grabbed the drink out of Stan's own hands.

He heard Red start to "woooo!" as Kyle drank the whole thing in one go. When he finished, he put it inside the other cup and he wiped the droplets off his mouth with the side of his finger, his eyes looking directly up at Stan, who shuddered with the faint and fading rush of sudden arousal.

"Yeah, Broflovski! That's how it's done!"

They held their gaze.

"I'm not picking you up when you hit the floor," he tried to joke, sensing that Kyle might be out to make himself throw up tonight.

"Wouldn't count on you to."

Stan felt his insides freeze. He watched Kyle turn his head to Red and somewhat heard him say they should go get more drinks. He watched them disappear into the crowd.

Then, much of the same; same level of drunkenness, same people, some of the same hook-ups happening in the corner, some not… Same music, same Butters' GaGa dance moves, same combinations of alcohol and juice. And around the same time as usual, everyone hit that same point of too-much that made them all go out of control. Except this time, Stan was stone-cold-sober.

He followed Kyle from a distance, watching him pound drink after drink, socializing as though he were everyone's best friend. He seemed to be. He danced with Butters while Kenny sat next to Stan, telling him some hilarious story of something that had just happened in the kitchen, to which Stan didn't even bother pretending to listen. He watched Kyle dance, people all around him, all around everywhere. Every once in a while, Red would rub up against him and Stan would force himself to stay sitting. It's was just Red. Soon enough, Craig would come and get her.

By 1:20am, he was pretty much bored out of his mind. He excused himself from Kenny, who didn't even notice as he got pulled up to dance with his boyfriend again, and made his way to the kitchen. Tweek and Millie were making out over a pile of freshly knocked over laundry on the floor. That must've been what Kenny was talking about. He turned around and reached for the Nikolai and stopped.

Not only did he just not feel like it, his gut was telling him not to. He grabbed a bottle of water from the case, and headed out to the back porch to sit.

It was May. And it was still cold as shit.

_God bless Colorado. _

As he took a swig of water, he wished hot chocolate came bottled. It chilled his insides a bit going down, and he spilled some on the stone steps to try and see if it would freeze.

"Vodka from a water bottle. Classy, fag."

It was like hearing the villains voice in a kid's movie. It made the hair on his neck stand up and his stress level skyrocket, which then subsided into dull aggravation. With dread, he looked up and over his shoulder.

"What do you want, fatass?"

"I want my fucking seat back, douche-hole."

"You won't fucking fit in it, lard-tits."

Cartman kicked Stan in the thigh, almost making him drop the water bottle. "I fit in your girlfriend better than you fit on this porch." Stan stood up to take a swing at Cartman, who ducked and sat down on the stoop. He laughed almost quiet, sinister. Stan, unable to care about fighting the guy who stole his girlfriend over stealing his seat, sighed and stepped over the ex-lard ass to the bottom step and sat down, putting the water bottle next to him. Cartman immediately snatched it to bogart his drink.

"What the fuck, this is just water!" he bitched, tossing it at the back of Stan's head and getting his tux-jacket wet.

"How insightful of you," Stan snapped, getting up as the water filled his seat. "Now I see why NYU gave you the green light."

"It's prom night. You should be on the bathroom floor by now."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"Damn fucking right you are, I stole Token's Flip camera just for that!"

"Oh well," Stan said simply, sitting back down on the other side of his step.

"So you're not drinking. What the hell kind of special sand got in _your_ vagina, Mrs. Broflovski?"

Stan wheeled around slowly and stared blankly at Cartman.

"…what?"

"I didn't know vag-sand was an STD, but, I guess it makes sense. Did you get it when you and Kike Broflovski scissored all night long?"

Stan punched him in the leg. "Don't call him a kike, fucker."

"No, actually, _you're_ the kike-fucker."

Stan stood up and grabbed Cartman by the tie on his tux. "Let go, faggadoccio, this ain't rented!" Cartman snapped, groping at Stan's arm to try and remove him, to no avail.

"What the _fuck_ did you just say?" Stan growled through his teeth. Cartman smirked.

"I said: let, go, faggadoccio-kike-fucker, this, tux, ain't, a, RENTAL!"

"Don't call Kyle a kike, you son of a bitch!"

"Fine, I won't call your husband a kike if you get the fuck off my porch!"

"What the fuck are you talking about!" Stan had him nearly by the neck with both hands by now.

"Who the fuck are you kidding, Mrs. Broflovski?"

"Stop fucking calling me that!"

"What, you thought you'd be the husband? Sorry, ma'am, but it seems the jew-rat is the one with the balls. Besides, I have to practice. Fag-marriage could be legal soon!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Cartman started laughing. Stan was furious. At the very least, he thought Kenny and Butters were the only ones who…

"Goddammit, Wendy…"

"Actually, Craig came up with the 'Mrs. Broflovski' thing."

Stan's insides froze. "Mother fucker…" He pushed Cartman against the railing. "Who else did you tell!" Cartman's laughter grew stronger, delighted. "Who the fuck did you tell!" The laughter intensified. "WHO ELSE KNOWS, FATASS!"

"WHO FUCKING CARES, FAG?" Cartman wrenched himself free of Stan's grip and shoved him over to the other railing. "Why the fuck do you care who knows? It's South Park, _everyone_ knows! Who the fuck _cares_? You have any idea the shit the girls said to my ho when she dumped you for me? Didn't stop us. We didn't _care_. _No one_ cares! The shit talk died down within the week. It's fucking high-school! Who cares what they think? Why the fuck do _you_ care?"

Stan froze again, Kyle's voice echoing in his head. _Who cares what they think, anyway?_

"Now…" Cartman huffed, fixing his collar and picking up his beer. "Get the fuck off my seat, fag. Pretty sure your husband and McCormick's wife are gonna start public butt-fucking."

"Fuck off, Cartman." Stan snipped, half-horrified as he pushed down hard at his instinct to smile as he went back inside, the screen door behind him slamming itself on its tight springs.

Eric sighed. "Fucking finally," he groaned, sitting down on the topmost step. "You still there, ho?"

Out from around the corner of the house walked a long-raven-haired girl with a pink beret, holding two plastic red cups. "Jesus, could you have called him a fag more?"

"Yes."

Wendy rolled her eyes and handed one of the cups to her boyfriend, sitting down on the step in front of him to cuddle up between his legs. She put her cup down. "You didn't have to be so—"

"Then you shouldn't have asked _me_ to help. You owe me quite the blowjob."

She turned and punched him medium-force and then leaned back, frowning, putting her hands between her knees. "The beers froze my fingers."

"Come here," Cartman said softly, grabbing her hands and turning her slightly so she could face him better. He took her hands and enclosed them in his, putting his mouth to them to blow hot air into the little cave he'd made with his fingers and palms. She put her head on his shoulder, and he kissed her on the forehead.

"Thank you," she said, only half-talking about the hands. Cartman stayed silent for a bit, continuing to warm her up before she pulled their hands away from his lips to just hold his, and she leaned forward slightly as he lowered his head to give her a soft, loving kiss.

"I'm seriously. Blowjob."

* * *

Of all people to get him to put his head on straight… fucking Eric fucking _Cartman_. Stan made his way back inside and sat back down in his front row spot for the Kyle's Drunk Show. Kenny saw him and plopped down next to him.

"Where've you been?"

Stan shrugged. "How much more has he had to drink?"

Kenny looked over at Kyle, who was currently hugging and laughing with Annie, cup in hand. "Dunno… I don't think he's really… stopped."

"Great."

It was 1:48 in the morning when Kyle got up on the coffee table.

Rihanna's voice rang out of the speakers as he watched Kyle, cup in hand, mouthing softly along to her as he danced. His eyes were closed.

"Just gonna stand there and hear me cry, but that's all right because I love the way you lie… I love the way you lie."

Kyle kept going with the song, drunk-rapping to Eminem as people danced at his knees. He belted out the second time Rhianna sang, off key and off pitch and off everything, and then… he lost it.

"Oh my God, this SONG!"

Kenny looked up from his drink.

"Hey, Stan, I think you can find a new girlfriend now! Anyone got Rihanna's number?" He screamed out, swaying more than dancing now. Red and Butters were looking at him intently. Everyone else pretended not have or truly hadn't heard him. "Apparently she gets wet for liars."

Stan stood up, slowly but confidently approaching the table. Some people moved out of his way, two rows of dancing girls standing between them.

"What's the matter, don't like getting called out for who you are?" His eyes narrowed. "Shit, what am I thinking. OF COURSE NOT."

Some more people had started to tune in. Kyle bellowed over the music.

"Who here agrees that Stan should fuck Rihanna!" he cackled, some people laughing, whether at him or at the joke or just out of awkwardness. The dancing pretty much stopped, allowing Stan to part through to stand directly in front of the coffee table. Somewhere, someone turned down the iPod a couple subtle notches.

"Seriously! You two would make one hot fucking couple. And don't worry, she won't leave you, like Wendy! Rihanna _loves_ liars!" He threw his head back in laughter and almost stumbled off the back of the coffee table. Stan helped steady him at the knees and Kyle stumbled again to shrug him off. "DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!"

Stan put his hands up in retreat, keeping the gap small in case he fell again. His heart was beating a mile a minute.

"God forbid that should happen! I thought that's what you were so fucking scared of! Lets just lie to all these people then!" Kyle screamed, jumping off the table and landing in front of Stan, stumbling again. "Lie and lie and oh, how we love to lie—the way we, you lie… liar." He grabbed Stan's outstretched arm for support before roughly pushing him away after he managed standing.

"I SAID STOP TOUCHING ME! IT'S WHAT _YOU _WANTED, I'M COMPLYING!" he snapped, throwing his pretty-much-empty cup crumpled at Stan's feet as he advanced. "It's not what _I_ wanted."

Stan didn't have time to take a breath before Kyle grabbed both sides of his face and crushed himself on him. He vaguely heard one or three people gasp and a few more or less let out a scoff or a chuckle. Stan's eyes closed as he grabbed Kyle by the arms to steady him, the other barely able to stay standing. He wasn't even offered the chance to kiss back before Kyle pulled away and wrenched himself out of Stan's grasp. He stood there and half-laughed, half-cried the word "liar" a few times. He spun around and headed back for the low-lying table. Stan saw it coming as soon as Kyle's poorly placed foot began to push him upwards.

"KYLE!"

Drunk as he was, he probably didn't feel a thing. Kyle's foot slipped off the side of the table about half way up and he came down crashing with a stomach-knotting crack punctuating his fall. The gasps and laughs intensified and multiplied. Stan pushed past every one and thing that wasn't even in his way. He helped pull Kyle off the floor after he rolled onto it; there was a gash on his forehead and he was bleeding.

"Mother of fuck…" Kyle groaned. Stan watched his eyes open and close in pain, his hand, also bleeding, or was that from his head? He sighed, maneuvering Kyle's legs together as he grabbed the arm closest to him and swung it over his shoulder before hooking his right arm under Kyle's knees. He groaned lightly as he lifted the nearly dead weight off the floor. His lower back winced. With Kyle in his arms, Stan headed for the stairs. "Is this a fucking joke? Put me down! Jesus, I bleed and suddenly you care. Thanks for waking me up, Prince Charming! Prince Liar! Prince Put Me The Fuck Down!"

In this fashion, Stan carried Kyle to the bathroom. If he'd had the will to care anymore about the opinion of his drunken classmates, he would have noticed they had all fallen deadly silent, following him with their eyes as he climbed up. For once, finally, he didn't fucking care.

Making his way down the hall, he kicked in the door of the bathroom as Kyle started to struggle, making it hard for Stan to hold him steady. He nearly dropped him flat out after he gave a great swinging lurch forwards to escape. Thankfully, Kyle somehow landed feet first inside the lavatory. He made for the door, which Stan closed and stood in front of, reaching a hand up to the bright red curls and pushing them back a little to look at the cut. He sighed, and moved Kyle towards the toilet, closing the lid before forcing him by the shoulders to sit down. He headed for the cabinet under the sink, where he knew from the numerous times he had been in Bebe's bathroom that the first aid kit stuff was. Kyle occasionally made a repeat comment from before and moved to leave, and Stan always stopped him and forced him to sit. Kyle might've struggled harder had he not wanted to stay. Gathering up the alcohol swabs, gauze, ointment and tape, Stan kneeled in front of his best friend.

"Idiot," he said as he opened the alcohol wipes.

"Fuck you."

"After I fix your head."

"You _fucked_ my head." Stan started swiping the wound clean, and Kyle grimaced. "Mother fucker, that hurts!"

"Then you shouldn't have cracked your skull open."

"Fuck you!" Kyle screamed again, slapping the alcohol wipes out of Stan's hand and pushing him backwards, nearly falling off the toilet lid himself.

"Let me fucking FIX YOUR HEAD!" he screamed back, bending down to pick up his discarded materials at the same time as pushing Kyle back up to sitting straight. Kyle stared daggers at him the whole time as Stan cleaned the wound, applied some Neosporin, covered it with a gauze pad and taped it down gently. By the time he was done, Kyle's eyes, brimming over with tears, looked at him painfully before pushing Stan away and turning to kneel in front of the toilet, pulling up the cover just in time to blow chunks all over the inside of the bowl. Stan waited for him to be finished, sitting back on the wall facing Kyle's back, till the other finally finished retching and grabbed some toilet paper to wipe his mouth. Stan stood up and grabbed an abandoned plastic cup, cleaned it out and filled it with water. He handed it to Kyle, who drank some and spit it out into the toilet.

"Sugar water," he mumbled, putting it down as he fell back to rest his back on the side of the tub.

"We should get you home."

"Yeah, what are you gonna do, carry me again?"

Stan sighed in stale frustration as he texted Kenny downstairs. "Stay here," he told him firmly. He walked out and closed the bathroom door behind him, meeting Kenny half way down the hall.

"What's up? You said bring a cup of fruit punch?"

"I'm gonna go get my car," he told Kenny. "Watch Kyle for fifteen minutes, make sure he doesn't die before I can get him home."

"Okay…" Kenny blinked, swaying slightly. "Why do I need fruit punch to do that?"

"My guess is Kyle can't taste what he's drinking anymore. Pretend you're going in to talk shit and get him more drunk. He won't know it won't. Distract him. I'll be back in fifteen."

Kenny mock saluted him and shoulder bumped past him with a "you better give me a ride, doucher."

Stan practically sprinted through the snow to his house. It wasn't far, but it still left him somewhat out of breath by the time he climbed out of the front seat once reaching Bebe's. _Seven minutes. Nice_. He re-entered the house to the sight of one third passed out, one third dancing, one third groping and groaning classmates of his and took the stairs two at a time to the bathroom, opening the door on Kyle crying into Kenny's sleeve.

"Fuck! GET OUT!" Kyle screamed, wiping his face and downing the 'cocktail' in his hand.

"Come on, I'm taking you home," Stan advanced, grabbing Kyle by the hands and pulling him to his feet. He stumbled again and Kenny grabbed him by the waist.

"I don't need your help."

"I don't need your shit."

"Fuck you!"

Stan pulled him forward and Kyle resisted, leaving Kenny to help steady him as they struggled. Finally, Stan peeled Kenny's hand off and ducked around Kyle's middle, swinging him over his shoulder.

"PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN!"

"Shh, Kyle," Kenny winced, glancing down the hall to Bebe's parents room. He watched Stan carry him as swiftly as he could out of Bebe's house, tossing a complaining and whelping drunk-as-shit Kyle into the passenger's seat. He buckled him in and closed the door. "I'll go get Butters."

"Hurry," Stan somewhat pleaded, getting into the car.

The whole ride was silent except for the sound of Butters' singing and the occasional lyric-interrupting kiss coming from the back seats. Stan went to Kenny's first.

"Later, you," Kenny said quietly as he kissed Butters' goodnight. Stan watched the swiftly changing expressions on Kyle's face in the refection of his window, and then turned away, watching Kenny walk safely into his house before driving off. Butters hummed gently in the background, some Disney song, if Stan remembered the tune correctly. 'A Whole New World,' maybe… They neared the Stotch house.

"Butters… what's that like?" Kyle asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"Hm?" Butters stopped, his mouth forming a small frown.

"Kenny… he loves you, right?"

"Um… well, gosh, I sure hope so," he scratched his head, laughing nervously. "Yeah?"

"No, he loves you. You know he loves you."

"Well… yeah."

"He's your best friend."

"Of course… I mean, you fellas are great, but—"

"On a scale of one to ten, how happy would you say you are, at this moment?"

Stan glanced at Kyle, then after a second, at Butters in the rearview mirror. He was now having a hard time keeping his eyes on the road

"Uh…"

"Or, rather, at the moment you and Kenny said goodnight?"

"I—I don't—"

"How happy?" Kyle asked again, with more urgency.

"Uh, I—ten?"

"Ten?"

"Thousand? I don't know, Kyle, that's kinda not—" Stan stopped the car with a jolt and Butters swallowed nervously. "—not the point…" He looked up at his house. "Well… uh, I better be getting home, fellas… I'll be grounded if I get in later than—" he glanced at the car clock, "—oh, never mind, looks like I'll be grounded anyways."

"Your parents would ground you for coming home late on prom night?" Stan asked, surprised; though there should have been no reason for it: Butters' parents were always like that.

"Yeah, but it's okay," the little blonde said with a smile, gathering up his things. "Usually when I'm grounded, Kenny sneaks in through the window, so, it's not so bad…" He then clapped his hand over his mouth and blushed at his private revelation. "Oh, geeze, I hope they don't notice I'm drunk! Later, guys—"

"Butters, wait!" Kyle cried out as he heard the back door open. The little one froze. "Not the point? What do you mean?"

"Huh?" Butters asked, bemusedly. He'd forgotten where the conversation had been going.

"You said 'that's kinda not the point,' as to how happy you are, on the scale… you said ten thousand…"

"Kyle," Butters sighed, closing the door gently, "Look… you can't judge how happy you are or how much you love someone in numbers—"

"I know that, douche-bag, I was just—"

"No, clearly, you don't! Otherwise, you wouldn't have asked…" he said, his hands forming into soft fists and bumping together lightly. "You're trying to measure up how happy I am in a number in front of Stan so you can compare it to the one you have in your head for yourself and make it as though Kenny and I are perfect and you and Stan aren't. Well, it doesn't work that way." They heard the car door open again, and Butters swung his legs over the side, facing out. "Just because Kenny and I are happy and I said ten thousand, and you guys are… well, you know… and what? What are you gonna put to that? Negative ten thousand?" he sighed, gripping the sides of the seat. "That's just… insulting; to both of you. Kenny and I weren't always like this, you know. Doesn't mean we ever loved each other any less. But even at the worst of times—no, _especially_ at the worst of times—when your number seems it's lowest, well, that's when you need to realize that, negative numbers or not, ten thousand is still a pretty big one, and if you're feeling this much at the worst of it all, maybe you should stop wallowing in your woe and realize… oh, never mind…" he fell silent.

Nervously, Stan cleared his throat "N-no… Butters, please… continue."

He took a breath. "Maybe you two should realize that feeling this strongly about each other, whether its one of the good times or bad, deserves much more recognition and respect than 'how happy are you, one to ten?' … You can't measure love and happiness with an arbitrary number of judgment. Otherwise, what you're judging and criticizing isn't really love." He jumped out of the car and shut the door with some force, enough to be considered uncharacteristic of him, making both Stan and Kyle jump. Stan watched him go inside his house, and, after a moments pause, started the car again.

* * *

It was quiet the whole ride to Kyle's house. Stan glanced at the red head from time to time, the other gazing blankly out the window, his face occasionally suddenly lit by the passing street lamps reflecting light off the snow. Finally, though the ride took less than two minutes, he arrived near the Broflovski residence after what seemed an eternity. Taking care to park far away enough that they wouldn't hear the approaching car, he turned off the engine.

Neither of them said anything. With a soft sigh, Stan climbed out of the driver's seat and walked around the front of the car to open the passenger door. He watched Kyle slowly unbuckle his seatbelt and swing his legs over the side. Stan reached for his hand, and he pulled away. He reached for it again, and this time Kyle let himself be lifted out of the car, his arm placed around Stan's shoulders as the raven haired boy shut the door, locked the car with the button on his keys, and walked them to the house in silence. They went around the back, reaching the kitchen door.

"Keys," Stan mumbled, and Kyle nearly stumbled fishing for them in his pocket. He gripped Kyle at the waist to steady him.

"Fuck," Kyle muttered. "I don't have them."

"What?" Stan whispered, trying to keep his friend standing. They heard footsteps coming from inside, headed towards the back door. "Shit." He whirled Kyle around and made to make a quick getaway around the back so as to not be seen, but Kyle stopped him.

"Wait." They heard the click of the lock, and the back door swung slowly and quietly open. Ike stood at the threshold, wordlessly beckoning them inside as he held the door open. How he'd known they were arriving, Stan didn't, but he smiled in gratitude and nervousness, walking Kyle indoors as Ike shut the door just as stealthily as he had opened it. He walked ahead of them up the stairs, opening the door to his older brother's room in the same fashion as he had in the kitchen and letting them in. Stan made his way to Kyle's bed and set him down on it, turning back to look at Ike. They held each other's gaze for a moment, the little one giving him a look of a thousand words, yet gave him no words at all, and then shut the door with a soft sigh of metal and wood behind him.

Stan was left looking at the closed frame for a minute or two, until he heard Kyle stir on his sheets. Turning, he pulled Kyle up to a sitting position and started to undo his tux. This time, Kyle didn't argue. Whether he didn't want to make noise and wake his parents, or just didn't have the energy to fight him off, or both, Stan didn't know. He discarded the bowtie, pulling the jacket down over Kyle's arms, noticing the tear at the sleeve he had made back at the gym and tossing it to the side. The bruise on his face twinged with memory. Slowly, he began to unbutton Kyle's shirt. With every loosed clasp, his heart rate increased, revealing the soft, white, familiar skin underneath. He slid the shirt off his arms, having to move a little closer to do so, until he could feel Kyle's breath on his shoulders. His heart started tossing and turning, fluttering and falling, until he was dizzy just from the nearness of their bodies. He pulled the cuffs over his wrists, still cheek to cheek with the other, tossed the shirt to the side and stopped. The pants would have to stay—if he tried removing them, God only knows where that would lead, and he wouldn't take advantage of Kyle when he was so utterly vulnerable and intoxicated. Both their breathing had become slightly labored as they drank in each other's scent. Slowly, Stan pulled back to look at Kyle, kneeling down in front of him. They were still for a moment, and then Stan, whose hands were on Kyle's wrists, pulled his best friend into a strong and tender embrace, burying his face in the bare crook of his neck and drinking him in. Timidly, Kyle wrapped his arms around Stan's shoulders and returned the hold, choking back a sob.

"Why did you do this to me," he whispered sadly. Stan closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and mumbling a reply into Kyle's neck.

"Why did _you_ do this to _me_?"

They sat in silence for what again seemed eternally, holding on to each other and feeling the rapid beat of both hearts beat against the pressed skin and cloth of their bodies. Neither of them had any idea how long they stayed like this, but when Kyle finally spoke, it somehow seemed that too much and no time had passed at all.

"Well, that's that, then."

Stan pulled away. "What is?"

"Butters was right," Kyle said, pained and tortured, as though he were screwing his courage up to say something he had not the will to say. "You can't measure love in numbers and competitive calculations, and yet…" he paused "…and yet, that's the only way I can think of this anymore. Of us… us… what us?" He bent forward, cradling his head in his hands, his elbow slipping off his knee. Stan caught him again, helping him back up to a sitting position. "Why can't we be like them?" he asked, thinking of Kenny and Butters. "Why can't we be… why…?"

Stan had no answer, and looked away off to the window, avoiding Kyle's eyes. He wanted to say that they could. He wanted to say that he would love him more than Kenny or Butters could ever dream of loving each other, but he didn't want to lie, and Kyle knew him too well—he'd call him out on it on the spot. He searched his heart for an answer: did he love Kyle? Of course. Did he love him in the way Kyle wanted him to? The way Kenny loved Butters?

_No_.

_Yes_…

_Absolutely_.

But before he could screw up the courage to admit it, Kyle spoke again. "I think it's best… I think it's best we don't… see each other anymore… after school… after this… I can't…" he swallowed hard. "I can't look at you anymore. You're not the same person I used to know. Once, I had a best friend… I don't know where he went."

"Kyle—"

"Don't. Please. I can't play this game anymore, Stan…" a few tears fell between them to the floor. "I can't sit here, waiting and hoping you'll be able to love me anymore… you can't. You tried, and I appreciate it, but… you can't. And that's okay… you don't love me. And, after… after everything… I don't think…" he took a deep breath, shutting his eyes and squeezing out a fresh cascade of sadness as he separated their hands. "I don't think I love you either."

Stan's heart went cold.

They sat and kneeled in silence for some time before he finally managed the strength to speak. There was something in Kyle's words that went unmistaken—he did not, or truly _believed_ that he did not love him; that there was no longer love between them. And in his despair, he took his words as truth.

"Well…" he whispered, lowering his head to hide his face. "That's that, then…"

As if from some far off corner of his mind, he suddenly found himself pulled to his feet, somehow on his own, but it was not his own doing. He had not the strength to stand and walk, and yet, he did. He stood, shaken, and looked one last time at the face of his once-super-best-friend, seeing the mournful light of goodbye reflected in green eyes back to his blue ones. Something in him mustered a soft, parting smile, and he nodded and turned, walking out of the room, down the stairs, out the back door, into his car, and into the night.


	16. Ruin

**Friday, April 16th.**

Ike had spared no gravity in the truth of his words. All week long, Kyle Broflovski, brave soul and dedicated student, had gone into hiding. Out of the perhaps fifty-eight text messages Stan had written out to him on his phone, only one had managed to get sent, and it went unanswered. With good reason, given that the question posed was, in itself, unanswerable. If it was true that 'stupid questions [did not] exist, only stupid people,' then, Stan was well into his participation in the r-tard regiment.

_Where are you?_

Where are you. As if he didn't know. As if he didn't know why he'd gone. Without his better half on which to weigh his reasoning and intelligence, he spent the entire week feeling somewhat brain-dead. He had not turned in any homework, reviewed his notes, nor studied for the two quizzes they had had that week, and damn near failed them both. He chalked it up to the self-disgust he felt at the thought of it being the two-week-iversary of having had his dick inside his best friend's ass. And he amounted the solemn feeling of guiltless guilt down in the bottom of his heart to his lack of an understanding for how seriously he had messed things up. It made him feel sick that, no matter how he tried, dreaming of someday getting to watch Kyle's brow furrow in bliss again as he threw his sweating, panting head backwards, crying his—Stan's—name out into the night was the only thing that got him through the week. It wrecked his mind to have a need for release more constant and demanding than even any hormonally-hopped-up spring chicken of his day and know that, every time he'd self-induced it, he could think of no one else but the one he was dying to stop thinking of.

And so it had been that Friday morning: Stan had woken up almost fulfilled from dream alone—he could see Kyle's smile and knotted brow; he could still _feel_ the grip of Kyle's fingers on the side of his hips, feel the inner workings of his body and muscles, tensing up tight around him as he—

Talk about morning-wood. The time was getting nigh when he'd have to get out of bed and dress if he ever hoped to make it to school on time, but his little fucker wasn't going down. So, like every other morning of the entire week, he reached with futile fervor for the picture of Wendy he kept hidden in his nightstand—one she'd given him just after they'd first made love. He closed his eyes, and tried to take himself back to that night—to remember what it felt like to be so excited and nervous and lucky that he was finally about to get lucky. He started to stroke himself.

He was focusing hard on Wendy's face, imagining her ass, her long hair flowing over her breasts, ignoring the feeling that he was in someone else's space and that someone else was in—

"No," he groaned, trying to keep the first flashes of Kyle out of his mind, staring hard at the risqué picture of his near naked girlfriend. Much to his dismay, he started to go limp. He groaned. He was not going to spend another day at school alone and blue-balled. He brought the picture closer to his face and sped up his motions.

He made no conscious decision to close his eyes and shut out the image before him, and furrowed his own brow in brief questioning as to why he felt his hand strongly crumple the photograph in his hand. The corners pinched at his skin, and he closed his fist tighter, tighter, until all thoughts of Wendy had long gone and he thought of only one—one pair of lips, parting open with a soft sigh; one bright flash of hair, undimmed before the breaking of the day coming through his window curtains; one set of glimmering, emerald eyes saying things no words nor moans could ever as they looked up at him close from under. He felt himself getting close, and made to open up the crushed photo, the thought of looking at it suddenly pointless as he tossed it to the side and threw his head back with a sigh.

_"Stan—fuck, Stan."_

"Kyle…"

He rode out his release with a strangled cry of shame and failure, tears slipping out the sides of his eyes as he reached for the box of tissues on his nightstand. He cleaned himself off, looking at his mess, trying to convince himself that he had been thinking of Wendy the whole time. He caught sight of the crumpled picture next to the wall and sat on the edge of the bed, shaking. Without even thinking, he screamed, guttural and growling, not even into his pillow at first until the desperate weight of truth came down on him hard enough to make him fall onto it. He heard a knock on the door—words, questions, concern came from the other side, to which he responded with an angry, blameful "LEAVE ME ALONE." Petulant teenager, always on the offensive.

At least he wouldn't be in pain at school this morning. Except, of course, the pain he brought on himself by never ceasing to think about what he'd done two hours, five days, and two weeks prior.

* * *

An unfocused mess, the rest of the day was. He vaguely remembered being called out in class for his lacking attention span, and cared not that he did not respond. His name floated angrily through the air carried by the voices of all his teachers, unheeded, until finally, halfway through the day, he felt a strong grip tipped with biting plastic fingernails dig into his arm and hoist him up off the seat.

"What the—"

"Don't give me that, Stanley Marsh," growled Ms. Garino; deadly and domineering. "I have called your name six times and you have ignored me. Now, since you haven't even bothered to unpack—" Stan looked down at his desk. He'd taken out a pencil. "—I am going to ask you to put your pencil and your text messages away and go. You are suspended for the rest of the day."

Stan watched her walk back to her desk and sit down, pulling out one of the pink and yellow slips of doom that the teachers would use when assigning detention. He pocketed his phone and shuffled up to the desk, watching her write endlessly about his behavior, blah blah blah 'uncooperative and disrespectfully unresponsive demeanor' blah blah blah… Stan didn't care much. He just wanted to go home.

"Give this to Principal Victoria before you leave," she instructed, holding the slip out in front of her and looking at him sternly. "And I will _know_ if you don't."

Stan, grabbing the paper and gritting his teeth to not instinctually crumple it in his fist upon receipt, nodded and walked out of the classroom. Passing the lockers on his way to the office, he glanced a little longer at Kyle's, checking sadly for cobwebs of neglect. Before he knew it, he was knocking on Principal Victoria's door.

"Come in."

Other than the very moment he had handed her the pink and yellow paper, Principal Victoria had no need to look at Stan as she filed his punishment away, making a record of his suspension and looking up the phone number for his parents. She re-read Mrs. Garino's comments with a sigh, and handed Stan the carbon copy of the document before pointing to the door. As he turned around, he heard her dialing a number.

"Hello, Mrs. Marsh? Hi, this is Principal Victoria, at South Park—yes—"

He shut the door. That conversation would be fun to come home to.

His head hung low, Stan shuffled morosely down the hallway towards the exit, wondering vaguely if the suspension and the number of sick days he had taken were going to affect his ability to graduate. Then, as he turned the corner, he stopped. Still looking at his feet, he felt a presence unmistakable pulsing through the air to the rhythmic sounds of books being swapped out of a locker. His heart flew up to his throat, pulling his head to a lifted position on his neck until he could see: Kyle Broflovski.

_Oh, fuck._

With forced effort, Stan took one cautious step forward, his foot echoing on the tile of the floor so loudly in its silence that they both mildly jumped at the sound, and he stopped again. Kyle turned to look at him, pausing before turning away and sorting through his books as calm as one could if their life depended on doing so before the next ten seconds were over. With a sense of bravado he knew not was in him, Stan speed-walked down the length of the hallway, his feet stopping six short of his friend's as he watched the locker slam under a firm hand, the lock spun shut and the zipper on the backpack sealed with zeal.

"Hey."

But Kyle would not look at him. He rested his backpack on the floor. "Why aren't you in class?" he asked quietly, a heart-wrenching softness in his voice. He had clearly intended to get in and out without being seen, especially not by the person he had been hiding from for a week.

"Got suspended," Stan replied quietly. Kyle glanced at him, concerned.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," he sighed. Looking off to the classroom he had recently been kicked out of. "That was the problem."

"Huh?"

"Nothing… Garino got pissed cause I wasn't paying attention and suspended me."

Kyle let out a half-scoff, half-chuckle as he swung his backpack over his shoulder. "Must have been some serious lack of attention to get her to suspend you."

"Yeah, well…" But he had no end to that sentence, as Kyle had already started to walk off and away from him. He chased, fast on his heels. "Can we talk?"

"I don't know, Stan, can we?" Kyle quipped, though half his tone was of such sadness it almost stopped Stan in his tracks as they pushed the front doors open and out into the cold, crisp April air. Kyle picked up his pace, even through the crusty, week-old snow piled in places on the sidewalk as he made his way home. They rushed on in silence for a while, Stan walking briskly behind him as they turned the corner to Kyle's.

"Is your mom home?" Stan asked, only just then realizing where they were headed. Kyle stopped and started again.

"Actually, no. She and my dad went to take Ike to the National Geo-Bee."

"The what?"

"National Geographic Bee," Kyle explained, the exhaustion from the past two weeks, the conversation and the walking catching up with his voice as they both caught up with the front door of Kyle's house. "National Geographic's version of Jeopardy, but with school kids." He reached into his pocket for his keys and unlocked the front door, swinging it open and stepping inside.

Stan froze. He felt suddenly that he stood at a major threshold of his young life. Flash images of sweating hands and flushed lips ran like muddled memories before his eyes as he stared into the Broflovski living room. He felt in the pit of his stomach an all-too-familiar desire awaken, breathing heavily on his heart. Kyle's voice shook him out of his thoughts.

"You coming?" he heard his best friend ask, his voice, though steady and cold, was laden with uncertainty—anxious and fearful. Stan, torn in half by his wandering mind and heart, ripped himself from the porch and stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He lowered his backpack off his shoulders.

It was dark in the living room. Kyle, in his melancholy, had drawn shut the shutters of the whole downstairs area, the couch clearly being the place he had chosen to camp out on that day. There was a half-drunk glass of water on the coffee table and a blanket on the sofa. He closed his eyes and breathed in the familiar smell of the house—recently baked bread hung in the air mingled with the scent of the fresh flowers on the side table and a hint of Febreze-covering-up-the-gefilte, among other things he couldn't place but yet were essential to the overall completion of the house of Broflovski. Opening his eyes again, he saw that Kyle had sat down on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees with his hands clasped together, fiddling with his fingertips. He walked over slowly and sat down somewhat beside him.

They sat in silence for what seemed a year before Kyle finally spoke. "That was really shitty of you, dude." Stan turned and blinked at him. He would have said 'what' or 'I know' or something, if he had not already guessed it might get him smacked. Thankfully, before he had to think of something, Kyle continued. "You hear chicks complain about it all the time—guys who fuck them and then peace out—but I never pegged you for someone who would do that to his fucking best friend…"

"I never pegged myself for someone who would _fuck_ his best friend—"

"So then why did you?" Kyle asked, the urgency in his voice weighing on Stan's chest. He had a million and one answers for that one question, none of them valid as he could not disentangle one from the other in the tumult of his head. After a few seconds, it started to give him a headache, and he squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I don't know," he said, defeated and resolute.

"Thanks," Kyle sneered. "That helps."

"Look, I'm trying, here—"

"Well, try harder, then," Kyle sputtered. "I mean, Jesus, Stan…" he whispered, running his hand through his hair and held his head in both of them, mumbling into his palms. "One minute we were running away from Yates and the next you were… you were nuzzling me and _pulling_ me to you—" Stan felt his head reel, the images from two weeks ago flashing before him as they had done at the threshold of Kyle's house; as they had done since they were first observed in waking life. "—what… what was I supposed to do?"

"Fuck, Kyle, I don't know!" he yelled, jumping up from the couch like a bolt suddenly thinking Kyle was going to try and touch him; in reality, the red-haired boy hadn't even moved. He felt the ghost of his hands all over his body, and cringed wanting not to want them to be more than phantoms. He scratched at himself, trying to rid his skin of the touch he dared not long for. "Stop me! Punched me or something!"

"Why the _fuck_ should I have punched you?" Kyle retorted, standing up to meet Stan, a look of outrage and genuine confusion on his face.

"You shouldn't have fucking reciprocated it, you dick. Why the FUCK did you let me keep going!"

"Excuse me?"

"You could have snapped me out of it! You could have been like, 'dude, what the fuck are you doing!'"

"I DID, you fucking asshole!" Kyle bellowed, throwing his hands up in the air in an angry gesture as he spoke and finishing with clenched fists locked down at his sides. "I pushed you away, I told you to stop—I was in shock—and _you_ just kept GOING!"

"I WAS DRUNK! I WAS FUCKING HIGH AND DRUNK! THAT'S THE ONLY REASON ANY OF THAT SHIT HAPPENED. IT MEANT _NOTHING TO ME_. IT WAS A FUCKING MISTAKE, AND I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER MOST OF IT, SO CAN WE JUST FUCKING _FORGET IT ALREADY!_"

Kyle had already taken a few steps back in the wake of Stan's belligerent outburst, but as he finished his last, and repeated in his head what he had just heard, he turned away from his present company, and slowly felt his energy sapped, pulling him back down to the couch. Stan wanted to sit so badly. His rampage had left him breathless, and the ringing of his own cruel voice in his ears grated on him as the screeching sound of a sudden, dangerous halt. He watched Kyle's breathing slow until it barely could be observed. His gut was telling him he should take back what he had said, right now, now, now; but he couldn't. If he did, he'd have to admit it wasn't a mistake. Admit that he'd pushed for it, that drugs and alcohol had merely opened his senses to it, not forced him to do it. Admit that he wanted it to happen again. And again. And again.

Admit that he was gay.

_I'm not. Fucking. Gay. I'm not. There's nothing wrong with being gay, but I am not gay. This is not me. This can't be me._

_This won't be._

The sun had begun to set. Stan, whose gaze had drifted from Kyle to the other side of the wall, heard a rustling on the couch. He turned and watched Kyle stand from the couch and plant himself before him.

"So that's it then?" Kyle Broflovski said, searching the blue eyes before him for any kind of confirmation; confirmation that what had just come out of the mouth that quivered some three and a half inches below them was indeed what he had really meant to say. Stan tried to open it, to say something else, to say anything that would allow him to keep his best friend. But there was nothing he could say to make it better. Suddenly, the thought of losing Kyle made him feel desperately alone. He started to look like a fish out of water before he managed to make sound.

"K-Kyle, I," he began.

"I want to hear you say that again," the red-haired boy demanded, his eyes painfully dark with an angry hurt that filled the room.

"Kyle, it was hard enough to—"

"Say. It. Again." Tears welled up in his eyes as he grabbed Stan by the scruff of his shirt, bringing their lips no more than one fourth of an inch apart. Stan felt Kyle's breath on his lips and closed his eyes tightly shut to stifle the impulse to throw them both down on the floor and repeat what had happened two weeks prior. "Say it, Stan. If you meant it—if that's the TRUTH, then SAY IT."

Stan opened his eyes to meet what he momentarily felt were two brilliant, sparkling emeralds, and, feeling his mental state being to flail around in confusion, stood his ground on the side of the denial that would keep him from acknowledging how those eyes made him feel. It was now or never.

"It was a drunken mistake. I want to forget it." He paused, praying he'd said enough and he wouldn't have to—

"Finish."

"Kyle..."

Pushing the dark-haired coward in front of him, Kyle pinned Stan against the wall, closing the gap between them so that no part of them wasn't touching. As he spoke, his lips moved against Stan's. "Finish what you started, Stan," he demanded, his breath filling his mouth in such a way that Stan feared for both of them what would happen if they stayed in this position any longer. Kyle was bound to notice that his body and his words didn't seem to be in accord with each other. "Say what you said before. I _dare_ you."

Stan's eyes fluttered shut in a rush of distress, want, hatred, arousal and pain. He felt his hands reaching up to grip at Kyle's hips when the awareness of what that would lead to ripped him from his reverie; and yet, his instinct was to pull Kyle even closer. If this was the end, he'd at least let himself feel this much.

"It meant nothing to me."

As soon as those words brushed against Kyle's lips, the red-head devoured his best friend's mouth in the most passionate, spiteful, loving, angry, wanton kiss either of them had ever experienced in either their eighteen years on the planet. He didn't know what to do. He had expected Kyle to slap him, punch him, storm out, something, but not this. The rush he'd felt two weeks ago took him over again, and he closed his eyes and gave in to goodbye.

Stan's hands gripped at Kyle's hips, grinding into him as his fingers wandered up and down to touch any part of the beautiful young man before him that he could. They kissed fiercely, dangerously, for a whole of twenty seconds before Kyle pushed Stan back with all the strength he could, sending his friend flying back into the wall. Stan shook his head, trying to get his bearings, bewildered and panting. He looked up at Kyle, who was now crying freely, liquid beads of dismay falling off the edge of his face in droves. Stan pleaded silently with him to not do what he was about to, but he did. He took a few steps backwards, shaking his head in disbelief, and then walked briskly out the door and slammed it behind him.

Stan was left alone—alone in the living room of his now ex-best friend's home. He stared at the back of the door, turning to look around the space, random objects here and there jumping out at him as he recalled the moments attached to them. Everything that had just happened boiled over inside him like a struggling volcano as he took a particularly deep gulp of the air inside the house, choking it out with a sob. He felt suddenly that the walls were rejecting him, closing in around him and the big fat fucking mess he had just made. He was not welcome here anymore. He could feel it. He shook himself vigorously in a desperate effort to shake it all off as he walked out the back exit, taking one last look into the kitchen before slamming the door. He ran down the back porch steps into a sprint, leaping barely over the fence and crashing down on his knees as he missed his landing. He winced in pain, sitting up to sit resting against the other side of the wood.

_What the fuck have I done?_

Stan pulled his knees close to his chest and stared out at the reddened sky, unaware that tears were flowing freely down his face. He watched the stars appear, and a shooting star streaked across the heavens, bright and beautiful. He grunted at the irony—the only sound he had made since having sat down—and as his mind groped for a wish, he had only one image in his head: himself standing next to a handsome kid with flaming red hair, whose manner of smiling at him made his days bearable.

…_what have I done?_


End file.
